Quintessence Quest: A Tiger among Lions
by Timid Otaku
Summary: Lance and Pidge go on a mission to try and locate Matt. However things go south and Lance is captured and taken as Prisoner to the High Priestess herself but a certain BOM member in disguise will help him escape. polygamous relationship between Lance, Keith and Kylee ( my OC)
1. Chapter 1

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also i did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1 was written by them. However, i do own my Voltron OC: Kylee. side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. feel free to make fan art)

This was it. Pidge could_ feel_ it.

Matt was rescued by a group of resistance fighters; she knew this from the scant footage she was able to track down when delving into databases during some of their attacks on Galra cruisers and facilities. From there, Pidge was able to match the uniforms the resistance wore to the particular faction that rescued Matt. She sought out any way to track any individual down—bribing shady aliens at various outposts and cities rife with information, galra prisoner records, surveillance footage—and eventually hit a lead with an ID tracker used by the resistance faction she was looking for.

She didn't know who the ID number was assigned to—their alien features displayed on the information screen were entirely unrecognizable. But they would hopefully at least offer another lead. If they didn't know Matt, they could point her towards someone who did. If they didn't know anyone, they could point her towards whatever base of operation they worked out of. She was a paladin of Voltron, so earning their trust likely wouldn't be a huge issue.

The ID's signal was located about 30 light years away, so Pidge quickly approached Allura with her plan at the castle of lion's bridge. Though they were taking a few quintants off after a particularly nasty skirmish, she knew Allura spent most of her time there. Pidge's neck was still a bit sore from being whipped in every which direction when a fleet ambushed them, and she could still vaguely recall the sensation of hurtling through zero-G after being blasted with the edge of one of the galra's ion cannons.

The first day after the battle was dedicated to the entire team doing ship repair since externally there was an extensive amount of damage. They worked for hours and hours together with Coran, Pidge, and Hunk heading the operation, and later all collapsed in the living area to eat and watch old Altean cinema and rest up.

After that, internal repairs commenced. Pidge took care of the majority of rerouting power along with Coran, and Hunk went about repairing damaged circuitry and appliances. They hit a snag however, when Hunk's repair tool kit ran low on a vital soldering material, and he couldn't continue working. The only option was to go out and find the rare elements needed to make the material, or to find a vendor that sold it. They opted for the latter.

GAC in hand, Hunk, Coran, and Keith (as their self-appointed body guard in case anything went wrong) took a small craft and headed towards a local space mall. The others were told to sit tight and take it easy until they returned.

Like Pidge would do that, though. Spare time was something she was often without, and so when the opportunity arose to do some digging around to find her family, she did so.

Pidge hurried into the bridge were, as she expected, Allura was observing the local star system on the ship's system, and quickly explained the situation. Shiro listened in from beside them, arms crossed in thought, and Allura, ever intent on helping her find lost family, was more than happy to portal her over to the location. She instructed Pidge to prepare the green lion so she could send her through. Allura mentioned she _was_ hoping to spend some time together, but understood her family took precedence over that.

Shiro, who had been in the bridge initially to talk to Allura, asked Pidge what she had found specially that gave her the lead. She explained the ID tracking device, and he smiled. Only Pidge would be able to figure out something like that.

"Why don't I go with you? He asked. "If you don't know anything about the resistance member, there's always the possibility they're not as friendly as you'd hope." Pidge snorted.

"Well, the system they're located in is just about dead, and there's no sign of galra chatter or anything. All they're doing is sending regular uploads of some kind of transmission data at regular intervals.. Probably just a low ranking member sending relevant information to higher command, so not someone I think I need to worry too much about."

"Still," Shiro presses. "It doesn't hurt to play it safe.. I'd rather wait until the other get back, so we could all go." Pidge looked at the dark circles hanging under Shiro's eyes, and felt a pang of sympathy. She knew it was tough being in a commanding position; recalling her father returning home after long days, exhausted from leading an entire team of people. "It'll just be a couple of vargas.." Lance peeked his head around the corner in then strode in, drawn by the voices of his teammates.

"It'll be fine, Shiro," Pidge insisted, voice low. Despite understanding where he was coming from and not wanting to make things hard for him, she also had no intention of waiting. she had a lead and she was going to pursue it _now_. "You guys should stay here and get some rest." Shiro looked about to protest, but Pidge cut him off. "Besides! I won't be going alone." She snagged Lance's arm as he approached and maneuvered him to face Shiro. "Lance is coming with me. _Right,_ Lance?"

Lance craned his head back to see Pidge's burning stare in his peripheral , and whipped it back to face Shiro. "Yes, absolutely." His face was extremely serious, and he met Shiro's gaze with an expression of stone cold absolution. Then he looked back at Pidge and stage whispered, "_What are we doing_?"

Allura chuckled, and Shiro let out an amused sound through his nose. Pidge let go of Lance's arm and stage whispered behind her hand back, "_Following a lead on my brother and letting these two have a day off_." Lance let out a quiet oh, and nodded resolutely.

"Right. I knew that." He slung his arm around Pidge's shoulder and smiled charmingly at the two in front of him. " Don't worry guys, me and Pidge _got this_. We'll track down the lead, and watch each other's backs. _Buddy System_." Pidge nodded along with him.

Folding his arms together, Shiro looked upon the two fondly, and exasperated, gave in.

"Alright, just keep in radio contact the entire time, and _be carefu_l, okay?"

They gave their best salutes possible while still hooking their shoulders together, then detangled themselves and made their way to the green lion.

As they approached the base, Pidge quickly filled Lance in on the specifics. He whistled. "Nice detective work, Pidge." She beamed. "So basically.. We go in there, hopefully meet up with this resistance member guy, and get as many clues as possible?" She nodded. "What if it's not them, though?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm pretty sure the Galra wouldn't be too fond of any resistance members. What better way to lure them in than to steal one of their IDs and wait for them to go check things out, y'know?" Pidge grumbled in irritation.

"Were you not listening to what I said? There is _zero_ galra chatter in this sector, so it's pretty unlikely they've got anyone stationed around here." Lance hummed, still unconvinced. "And the IDs are embedded inside of certain resistance members. That way, if they go MIA or uh, _die_, they can easily be tracked."

She turned her gaze back to the lion's viewport. "This guy is still listed as an active member in the database I hacked into, and his vitals are reading just fine." She pushed the joysticks forward, speeding up their descent. "Trust me, we won't be long." Lance conceded, giving her an alright before he went to fiddle with his bayard.

There was always that worried, paranoid twitch in the back of her mind that always assumed the worst. Always went to the terrible 'what ifs' which often centered around the well-being of her dad and brother. Lance tapped his foot in an uneven pattern on the floor of the lion and started humming.

She shook her head. It was most likely the two would drop in, get what they needed, then get back to the castle and resume the search for her brother and father. But even in the unlikely scenario that things _did_ get dicey, she was a _paladin of voltron_. So was Lance. If anyone was capable of taking risks and coming through unscathed, it was them.

Hidden among a landscape of asteroids was were Pidge and Lance found themselves. The green lion weaved through the debris of the area before approaching their objective; a large industrial structure built within a larger asteroid. It jutted out from the dense space rock, but still hid itself well with a similar color scheme and simplistic, blocky shapes to the exterior of the structure.

"Is that it?" Lance asked from beside Pidge. Though she offered the seat behind her own in the cockpit, Lance argued he couldn't see well enough and insisted on hovering next to her. She nodded, then tilted the steering controls forward and they descended towards the building.

"So the security system was pretty well built, but I've already bypassed pretty much everything like, an hour ago. Other than a couple doors, I've already got the entire situation on lockdown." Lance gave another impressed whistle at that, and Pidge couldn't help but to smile. She _was_ pretty impressive.

They approached some massive docking bay doors, but decided against entering through since if they _did_ have any bad company, that's where they'd expect them to enter. It would be a much safer dea to enter via a now unsecured ventilation system underneath the building.

Pidge and Lance fastened their gear, then launched out into the vacuum of space in an exhilarating rush. The sudden burst of speed into zero-G made Pidge's breath catch in her throat, but Lance seemed downright _excited_.

"This never gets old!" Lance laughed, almost breathlessly as they hurdled towards the entrance vent, guided by their suits navigation system. Pidge raised her forearm towards the approaching dark alloyed surface.

"Alright, here we go." Almost simultaneously, their suits explosively deployed the tethering system, which whisked towards and then fastened itself with a dull clang to the surface.

Once secured, the tethers began to detract back into their suits, pulling the two inwards. They landed soundlessly, and gave each other a thumbs up for the successful maneuver. Pidge breached the ventilation system with her bayard and they both slipped inside.

The inside of the facility mirrored the exterior with it's dull, metallic colors and industrial structure. Their lightly clanging footsteps seemed to echo through the corridors as Pidge led them towards the location of the resistance member.

"My initial scans of the place didn't detect any lifeforms here at all," she started, tapping at the map screen her suit displayed. Lance made a noise of confusion as they walked side by side.

"Wait, what? Why are we looking for the resistance member here then?" His furrowed brow was much easier to see without his visor to obstruct his expression, as the two had earlier removed their helmets after realizing they were in an oxygen rich environment.

"The _ID tracker_, remember?" The small device fit snugly in one of her side pockets, and Pidge quickly pulled it out and brandished it towards Lance. "This place may be able to interfere with our local scanners and block us from being able to track life signatures, but I'm pretty sure this tracker syncs up with a database the rebellion maintains in some remote location or something. So we can use _this_ to find them, even if our other scanners don't work."

"..Okay, yeah, that makes sense." Lance crossed his arms and looked up in thought, then peered suspiciously back towards Pidge. "Where'd you say you found that thing again?"

Pidge looked away uncomfortably. "uh, well.." She'd been hoping he wouldn't ask, as she was still coming to terms with it herself. "..I came across some wreckage of a galra cruiser and some ships that matched what the rebellion's look like, and when I went looking for some survivors inside, I found it."

Lance's expression shifted to something more uncomfortable as well. "Oh.. Well, was there anyone..?" The question, though left unsaid, was obvious. She shook her head, and he visibly deflated.

There weren't any survivors. The ships had been ripped apart and the interior with all of its inhabitants had been exposed to the vacuum of space immediately. Pidge had floated past one two many corpses with agonized expressions on their faces that she considered cutting her search short. In the end, she left with a vital clue, and an experience she wasn't keen on sharing with the others.

"Hey." She felt a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and slowed down her pace to look up at lance. "That must have been pretty messed up to see, Pidge," he empathised, giving her a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

In a moment of genuine surprise for Pidge, she found herself thinking of Shiro. It almost felt like it should be _him_ offering up those words of comfort. Not the goofy blue paladin. Maybe he wasn't as goofy or immature as Pidge thought he was.

She quickly shook herself out of of the train of thought. Interpersonal reflections could be saved for later; for now, the two had a mission to complete. She smiled and once again held up the tracker.

"Thanks.. I at least got this, though. And that's one step closer to Matt and dad."

He flashed her a grin and nodded, gripping his helmet more tightly under his arm. "Right. Let's find that rebellion guy and make him tell us where they are." With a quick flick of her wrist, Pidge enlarged the map display in front of her to show Lance exactly where they were headed.

"We're already pretty close, just around the corner here..." Blue light flashed within Lance's free hand and quickly materialized into his bayard. Pidge gave him a flat look.

"What? We don't know what could happen in there!" He reasoned, and while that was true, Pidge didn't want to potentially scare away someone that could be the key to finding her family.

"Yeah, but just—play it cool, alright? If they get spooked and attack, _use your shield._ No pointing guns at the rebellion!"

"_If_ it's the rebellion!" Lance hissed, rifle raised at the door they approached.

"_Shh_!" Pidge pulled up the command system on the data screen beside the door. Wanting to be helpful, Lance cautiously pressed an ear up to the door. Nothing seemed to permeate the thick, metallic material, though Lance could feel a strange vibration against his cheek; Similar to the vibrations he'd feel in his lion whenever Allura would wormhole them to various locations.

Suddenly overcome with a growing feeling of apprehension, Lance leaned back. "Hey, I really don't know if this is a good idea.. I'm getting some bad vibes, Pidge." Realizing what he just said, he chuckled nervously. "...Literally. The door is vibrating."

Undeterred, Pidge continued typing away on the console. "I can't even count the number of different space anomalies that would make a massive complex built into an asteroid _vibrate slightly_, Lance. It's fine." An affirming beeping noise sounded from the console, and Pidge made a noise of surprise, eyes glued to the screen.

"Oh, hold on.." The door began emanating a strange buzzing noise, and Lance jerked back.

"What,_ why?! What's happening?!_" The edge in Lance's voice was growing more frantic as a creeping panic began to set in. Pidge quickly shoved her helmet on and strode over next to Lance, activating her shield, then bayard. Lance frantically copied her.

"The door actually seems to be.. a very small portal?" Paranoia was quickly becoming understandable suspicion, but Pidge tried to remain calm, hopeful that this was still the next lead to her family. "Could be another security measure the rebellion has to keep themselves safe from attack.. somehow." She double checked the coordinates on the tracker, and they matched where ever the portal led to. "Let's be careful, though, just in case."

Lance audibly swallowed, bayard posed at the ready next to his shield. _Please be a false alarm please be a false alarm please be a false alarm_-

The door hissed, releasing a bit of atmospheric pressure, before sliding open quickly.

The containment pod containing the comatose rebellion member off to the side of the room barely registered in Lance's peripheral vision as his body moved on its own, shoving Pidge off to the side as a bright beam of light from the massive canon 20 feet ahead of them slammed into him. He heard Pidge scream, then blinding brightness, then nothing.

—

Lance didn't register when he came to—eyelids too heavy to even open. Not that he would think to open them; his mind felt light years away from connecting to his body. There was a stillness in the dry air that made him feel like he was floating. He heard voices nearby.

"Its internal organs almost burst from our weakest tractor beam, are you _sure_—" A rough voice rasped, sounding like one of Lance's uncles that smoked too many cigars and always smelled like ash when he pulled him in for hugs.

"I am." A sharp, gravely voice cut the other one off. The words warbled strangely, like the chickens would back at his parent's farm. He felt prodding around his face, but couldn't muster up enough energy to open his eyes.

Then someone did it for him, and he saw them smile, wickedly pleased at the sight before them.

"We caught a _paladin._"


	2. Chapter 2

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also i did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, a large majority of Chapter 1-5 was written by them. However, i do own my Voltron OC: Kylee. side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. feel free to make fan art.)

* * *

Whatever had been injected into Lance's system when he woke up initially had quickly worked its way out, leaving him with a dull, heavy ache all throughout his body. He could now move and look around a bit more easily; taking in the surroundings of the small, dark cell he was unceremoniously dropped into an hour or so before.

After the two scruffy aliens had finished taunting him and squishing their gross alien hands all over his face, the warble-voiced one gleefully informed him they'd be contacting a Galra general in the area. They'd be eating well for Deca-Phoebs off the GAC Lance's capture would pull in for them, and Lance could only stare up at them in horror from the ease of which they had decided to sell him off.

He sat up with some difficulty, and tried to quell the fear and panic taking up residence in his chest, making his eyes annoyingly hot. Lance would have done something when he started regaining feeling in his limbs again, but whoever the aliens were who had attacked them (hopefully Pidge had managed to get away, but Lance couldn't remember anything after he got hit with.. whatever that was) had also binded his arms and legs with some extremely tough looking industrial binds. With his arms folded behind him, and legs together, he couldn't summon his bayard, couldn't fight, couldn't even try to run.

Lance pulled his legs up to his chest and tried to breathe. He really hoped Pidge made it out okay.

Several pairs of footsteps approached the door, and before Lance had any time to collect himself, the door screeched open, slamming against the wall from the force of the push. Squinting from the brightness pouring into the dark cell, Lance's eyes met those of a Galra he didn't recognize, who swiftly seized him by the jaw and wrenched him up against the wall. Galra sentries poured in the room, followed by the scruffy raiders.

"Hm." They seemed to scrutinize Lance, pushing his head against the hard surface, before coming to their conclusion.

"I know this one. They're of Voltron, alright." The Galra turned his head, nonchalantly addressing one of his troops. "Pay them," he commanded, then turned his attention back to Lance as he struggled.

"Let me ask you something. Do you recognize me, paladin?" The galra asked, tone light. Lance cracked a lid open and frantically studied their face. Furry, purple face, big koala ears, and an ugly scar trailing from his chin to his left cheek. Lance had no idea who they were.

"..N-No.." Lance clenched his teeth together as the grip on his face tightened. The Galra's indifferent expression face tightened into an angry growl.

"Wrong answer." They reared back their free hand, formed a fist, and connected it with Lance's face.

* * *

It took one look at Pidge stumbling out of the green lion after it had landed back in the castle of lions—words rushed and hysterical, nearly indecipherable through her tears, Lance nowhere to be seen—before Shiro understood what had happened.

Keith paced back and forth on the floor of the bridge, staring down at a heartbroken Pidge. Crouching down next to her, Hunk's supportive grip on her small shoulder tightened when Keith raised his voice.

"Why didn't you just wait?!" He was exhausted after running around all day trying to track down a vendor selling the toolkit Hunk needed, and his voice was dry and hoarse from hours of bartering. Pidge hung her head, and it made him seethe. "No, I get it. You had a clue to track down your family, and you didn't stop to think about how dangerous things could get. You just had to go right then and there, even if that meant putting yourself—" his voice cracked. "—and Lance in danger!"

"Keith." Shiro cut in, stepping towards him and placing a hand against his chestplate. "It was my call." Hunk's eyes widened in hurt, staring up in disbelief at what Shiro said. Allura looked down and away in discomfort. "We need to focus less on who to blame, and more on what we need to do to get Lance back, alright?"

Keith sharply turned away from the group, effectively silenced. "Hey, Pidge?" Hunk timidly cut in. "You said the ID tracker's coordinates changed after Lance got taken, right?" She miserably nodded. "So the best place to start would probably be the new coordinates. Lance might still be nearby."

"It's probably another trap," Keith growled.

"So be it." Shiro's tone held a sense of finality to it, and the group all stood in unison. "We'll be ready."

* * *

Completely disoriented, Lance once again found himself jolted back into consciousness. The first thing that registered was a pounding in the side of his head, where he had gotten punched earlier. He felt his skin pull uncomfortably around a tender spot just below his eye, and realized there was a mostly crusted-shut cut there, still oozing blood slightly. His arms and legs were strapped to a slanted table, angling him towards the door of the small cell.

"Finally awake, I see." From beside him, a familiar deep voice startled him. Lance tried to turn his head, but could only make out the individual when they decided to step into his view. The same Galra from before folded his hands behind his back, inspecting Lance like a garrison commander. His outfit was a uniform Lance had often seen on ranked officers in the Galra empire, which he assumed would make this guy something like a commander.

"I'm surprised how fragile you are, you know," He started, leaning in closely to Lance's face with his own. "The trap those scavengers used to secure you was almost enough to kill you. Imagine that." Lance tried to tug at his restraints, eager to get away from the Galra's foul breath.

"A paladin of voltron, nearly brought down by tech from the Dalterion Belt, of all places." Their laugh was tinged with something malicious, and Lance once again wracked his brain to see if he recognized who they were.

But nothing came to mind. His laughter died off as he turned back to Lance.

"Right, yeah, laughable. Totally. The Dalterion Belt?! Unbelievable!" Lance's head was aching, and he was half tempted to ask the commander-guy to just get to the point. "Anyway, who exactly are you? I didn't get your name before you, y'know, knocked me out."

The galra's pleased grin sunk into an angry scowl, but then he appeared to catch himself—just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone. The tight lipped smile returned, and he drew in closer. Lance belatedly realized there were some sentries standing guard in the room, and suddenly felt very cramped and unsafe.

"I am second lieutenant Vargo, and you, pilot of the blue lion—" his voice turned venomous, overflowing with malice and resentment. "—You were responsible for the complete annihilation of my first fleet."

"I.." Lance felt a wash of dread come over him. Being reminded that he and his team routinely destroyed countless fleets wasn't something Lance enjoyed. It was self defense, it was fighting for the freedom of the universe, but killing was still killing, even if the soldiers whose lives they ended did arguably deserve it. Second Lieutenant Vargo leaned back, looking down past his nose at Lance.

"Though I won't be able to deliver the empire two paladins as I had hoped, I'm extremely pleased that the one I am handing over is the very same one responsible for my past defeat and demotion." Lance sucked in a breath from the surprising revelation. He then let out an exasperated sigh, despite the situation.

"So you're not actually mad I wiped out your whole team or anything, you're mad you lost and got demoted? Can you get any more evil and petty?" Vargo took a moment to take in Lance's words, silent. Contemplating. He turned his back towards him for a moment, but then whipped back around.

In an instant, agony exploded against his eye. Lance screamed as he felt blood splatter and run down his cheek. The second lieutenant pulled a small blade back from Lance's face, and he realized that he couldn't see out of his left eye. It was just—red.

No. No way. He squeezed his lids shut as he violently fought against his restraints, not missing the heavy slide of something, not blood running down his face as well. The second lieutenant started to chuckle once again, drowned out by Lance's panicked cries.

"Yes, paladin, I think I can."

Things were a blur after that. A strange looking soldier entered the room and injected something directly into Lance's arm, and his struggling died out. Vargo ordered his cell be transported and ready for the witches arrival, and despite the heavy sedation coursing through his bloodstream, his heartbeat picked up, rife with fear of being handed over to someone assumedly higher up in ranking from the empire.

Loosely swaying his head and ignoring the aching throb in the right side of his face, Lance wondered what was going to happen to him. Were they going to try to ransom him off to his team? He imagined having to watch them through a screen as his captors demanded whatever they wanted—Voltron, probably—and forcing them to decide whether or not his life was more important than the key to saving the entire universe.

His throat felt thick with anxiety, and bile forced its way up his esophagus and onto the floor. Lance coughed unevenly, eyes leaking and burning.

No, he wasn't that important. His team would never agree to something so foolish. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't.

But maybe the galra would keep things simple and just kill him. One less paladin to worry about trying to take them down. They were all about efficiency, anyway. Lance realized he was probably going to die soon.

A disturbing laugh bubbled up into the back of his throat. They dealt with death every other day, and while they were usually in some form of danger, the finality of death hadn't really hit him until now. He'd never see his team again; He'd never see Earth again.

The room jerked slightly to the left, then felt like it was being pulled upwards. Heavy machinery whirred all around him, echoing loudly through his cell. His cell. No, this was Probably going to be his execution chamber.

Breath drawing in raggedly, Lance allowed himself to cry.

* * *

Kylee heard the excited chatter among their superiors earlier that quintant that there was a VIP subject being transported to one of their sector's labs that the Priestess Haggar was going to be overseeing herself. Having seen the grotesque abominations so commonplace here that were never important enough for her to directly oversee, they wondered exactly what sort of specimen could garner the witch's attention.

Completing a chemical transfer to the containment pods in the lab, they made their way into the main area of the testing facility, ducking and dodging out of the view of their superiors. It hadn't been very long since they had been transferred to this sector, and Kylee wanted to bring as little attention to themselves as possible considering they were an undercover agent for the Blade of Marmora.

That was probably why they had managed to last as long as they had so far in what was considered one of the most hostile, "innovative" (they would probably use a word closer to 'heinous,' but semantics were best left unsaid to the individuals doing their experiments here) sectors of the empire as a member of the Blade.

Kylee knew all too well the cruelties one could face at the hands of Haggar; They hadn't been there very long but already had bore witness to her horrifying experiments. They had never seen the witch themselves (and they were a long way from having the clearance to so so), but their lab was always dumped with her leftover experiments after she had done whatever it was she did with them.

They felt a pang of pity for the creature that was set to face whatever she had in store for them. Kylee had a larger mission they had to dedicate themselves to, however, and while they hoped their undercover work here would help as many people as possible, they knew they couldn't save everyone. The unfortunate experiments they observed had lesser chances of being liberated than entire planets under Galran rule. Most of the druids and scientists here probably didn't even consider most of the subjects to be alive beings capable of thought and emotion, even though almost all of them were.

But Kylee knew rescue would still prove impossible; Especially since blowing their cover would probably mean immediate death. For both them and whoever they tried to help.

So Kylee remained quiet. They did as they were told. They were not in a position to overthrow the empire yet, and was merely a small part of a larger operation. They would have to bide their time until then.

A crowd of galran scientists passed through the darkened hallway Kylee had stepped into, avoiding the translucent dividers along the floors and walls separating Kylee's regular transport route and regular hallway, along with a group of sentries heading in the same direction. The docking bay was that way, so they were probably going to watch the new shipment arrive. They had no interest in being late with their quintessence supply delivery, however, and made a beeline towards the lab they worked in.

The druid Zolya that Kylee worked under, the very same one who initiated Kylee into the group of druids because of their unique attributes and abilities, was no stranger to physical discipline when rules were not followed, and the injuries hidden beneath his druid robes from last pheob had only just started to heal. Though they had only one rank difference between the two of them, the group of magic imbued Galrans clearly valued seniority highly, and Kylee was considered more of a lackey than anything.

Working undercover wasn't always easy, they supposed. Kylee considered himself pretty tough, though. Half-breeds were lowly regarded in Galra society, and he had a rough life leading up to this point as the only half-galra, half-human that he knew of in existence.

"Ah, there you are." The doors biometric scanner beeped in affirmation and opened to allow Kylee into the large lab area, and a tall, darkly robed druid acknowledged them before turning back to their screen.

No longer needing prompting at this point, kylee held the oblong cylindrical containment tube full of the concentrated quintessence mixture they had been transporting and approached a 7 foot tall tank area. Their tail swished slightly for balance as they tipped the tube and inserted it into a plugging area designed for the component, and with a hiss, pneumatic chambers spun it into the correct position, ready for the deposit of quintessence into the testing tank. It drained from the tube quickly, leaving no remnants, before the dark liquid mixed with the lighter fluid already in the tank.

Despite there being no point where the quintessence met the air of the lab room, Kylee felt a tingle wash across their striped face from the proximity of the liquid. Frequent exposure to quintessence all their life is how Kylee got there in the first place; The markings on their face and minor magical abilities, which also let them alter their skin slightly to better fit in with the druids, made them the perfect agent to send undercover to learn the inner workings of the more magical side of the Galran empire's military.

"Assume your station," Zolya commanded impatiently from afar, intently typing away at the console. The small data station behind the tanks in the lab was where Kylee did their work monitoring the different levels of whatever subject was brought to them. They weren't allowed to know what they tested for yet (still too new to the current druid division), or anything about the quintessence mixtures they transported to and from the lab; only that it was considered very hazardous to handle the mixture in any way, and that any electronic transportation systems often broke down under the radiation emitted by the concoction.

Kylee had built up something of a tolerance for it early on in his life. His father, previously a blade member before his death, prepared Kylee for the difficulties they would undoubtedly face later in life. The exposure, while initially thought would be lethal, actually proved incredibly useful after Kylee joined the blade. Infiltrating the druid ranks within the Galran empire was surprisingly easy once it was realized Kylee possessed abilities and tolerances that suddenly took the intense hassle out of transporting something as finicky as quintessence, which the empire was known to deal with in massive quantities.

Soon after realizing this, Kylee was put undercover and introduced into the empire's ranks in a small division, and the druids opted for a manual transport and handling system, using Kylee. Their division's efficiency skyrocketed, which did not go unnoticed. After proving their worth and earning the trust of the druids around them, Kylee was then re-assigned to the larger labs closest to the heart of the empire, where they were needed the most.

They had gone from an under-utilized blade member one quintant, to spending their days around high concentrations of quintessence the next, exposing themselves to the radiated output so that the scientists and druids didn't have to.

It was the perfect way to solidify themselves within the ranks of the druids, and slowly work to unravel the empire as a whole from within. It was grueling and dangerous, but Kylee knew they were the best fit for the position; They were the only one who could do this.

"Injection stabilization complete, sir," Kylee informed to the druid, knowing now their job was basically done. They had no subjects in this sector currently, and Kylee wondered if the VIP test subject would be put with them, or one of the several other labs within the massive ship they were stationed at.

"Good. It is vital every protocol is followed exactly, as we have a very important shipment arriving later today. I'm sure you've heard."

Well that answered their question. Kylee gave an affirming nod before asking, "Will I remain here to monitor the fluctuation levels of the tank then, sir?"

Beneath the druid's long, frightening mask, Kylee could almost see the snear they made. "Of course not. Our priestess will be accompanying the shipment for preparation before we begin testing."

They strode over to them, long hands folded behind their back as they surveyed the much smaller half-Galran. "You have proven to be useful for our work here, and the priestess of course knows of all those within our ranks, but you are not permitted to be in her presence. Only those of the highest rank in the order may even be near her, let alone speak with her." Kylee swallowed behind their own mask, uncomfortable at the sudden scrutiny.

The druid ushered them out of the way of the console, and assumed control of it. "After the human has been prepped and the priestess takes her leave, your duty will be to simply transport and administer the injections created by the priestess herself while she is away. We don't want her to have to set eyes on a lowly half-breed, after all." They synced Kylee's control panel up with their own on the other side of the lab, then quickly retreated. Kylee watched them in awe, wondering if they realized what they just let slip.

Bothered by Kylee's characteristic quietness, the druid audibly exhaled through their nose and resumed typing away at their console. "You are dismissed." Kylee stiffened, knowing if they stayed longer than 10 ticks, disciplinary measures would be taken. They swiftly paced towards the exit, and as the door swished closed, Kylee turned and pushed their back up against the wall, staring down at the floor.

A human. They were bringing a human there. Kylee was going to see a human.

They had no idea there were other humans in these deep reaches of space. Though only half-human, Kylee felt an immediate connection to this individual.

They needed to see this new subject as soon as possible.


	3. Chapter 3

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also i did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, a large majority of Chapter 1-5 was written by them. However, i do own my Voltron OC: Kylee. side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. feel free to make fan art.)

* * *

"Commander." The witch's voice was sharp, low and dangerous as she took in the sight before her. Her surprise when a druid approached her chambers several varga ago unannounced—something all in her ranks knew not to do unless they were seeking an early death—quickly became a much more pleasant surprise when they delivered the news that a Voltron paladin had been captured and was on route to her main testing grounds.

The commander responsible for the capture—Vargo, she recognized—had taken complete credit for everything, though with his track record it seemed entirely doubtful. He was skilled in using his words to worm his way up through the ranks in the past, but those skills never did transfer over well to combat scenarios. He was lucky Zarkon only gave him the facial scar along with a demotion after his past failure against the Voltron coalition.

The commander had been awaiting her arrival at the docking bay, no doubt looking to use the capture as an opportunity to right those previous failings. She had little patience to deal with whatever deceitful nonsense he would undoubtedly have in store for her, and after a quick acknowledgement of his presence, the two entered the holding cell with no further preamble.

"His eye." she harshly prompted again when met with Vargo's silence. "What have you done to it?" He stiffly peered over at the unconscious paladin, slumped forward and ruined eye puffed out. Coagulated blood covered the area, but it was clear the wound was very recent. He cleared his throat.

"A-An unfortunate result of the struggle before his capture," he explained, folding his arms behind his back to hide the trembling in his hands. Haggar narrowed her faintly glowing eyes into slits.

"I have not been made aware of any gravitational beams—such as the one you apparently used to catch the paladin without incident, by your own accounts—to inflict lacerations," she hissed, and it was clear the commander knew his lies had been seen through. He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to speak or even meet her gaze. He could feel the sweat beginning to form on his face. Higher ranked officers had been struck down for lesser offenses than lying to the witch, and commander Vargo feared he would soon join them.

"..Though, I suppose this may present an opportunity.." he lifted his head to watch Haggar step towards the paladin. Her elongated fingers reached out to tilt his face up, and Lance groaned lightly at the jostling, still very much unconscious.

"I've dealt with affixing... augmentations to this particular species before," she spoke, seemingly to herself. Her grip on the paladin's face tightened slightly as she gave a dark chuckle, then turned back towards Vargo. "Lord Zarkon will be pleased to hear of your redeeming actions here today, commander. After I am through examining this specimen, I will report your success directly to him."

Vargo felt relief wash through him, now very thankful he had presented someone of high enough value to her that he wouldn't be killed for injuring them. He held no respect for the witch—someone so clearly not of Galran descent—but understood just how outranked he was, and how much he needed her good word to pull himself up the ranks. Her word would be vital if he were to ever stand on equal footing to those like Sendak, Zarkon's right hand soldier, someone he had always aspired to be more like.

"Vrepit sa!" Vargo saluted, but was mostly ignored by Haggar, now seeming to be enraptured by her new subject. Two druids entered from behind him—one sliding over to the back of the slanted table Lance was strapped to in the dark room, and the other eerily hovering next to him, staring down at the shorter galra.

"Return to your outpost for now, commander," they instructed coldly, and before the commander could attest to being ordered by some draped magician, they cut in. "The priestess will provide you with extra fleets, as we are certain the other paladins return to look for their teammate."

After taking one more look at the witch behind him, commander Vargo nodded and silently took his leave, hopeful that she would soon follow through and act as the stepping stone he needed her to be.

Though if he could provide additional paladins to the empire, surely renown and success would come to him even faster.

"Alright, everyone, we're approaching the facility, so be on guard," Shiro cautioned, and the team tightened their lion formation as the complex slowly came into view. Pidge's breath caught as she saw it for the second time. Things were completely different this time though, and it was all her fault. Her chest felt tight. If she only hadn't forced Lance to come with her, none of this would be happening. She found herself wishing she had just listened to Shiro.

Wanting to avoid the painful memories, she scanned over the numbers on her screen to get an idea of what was ahead of them.

"Okay," Pidge started. "It looks like there's a lot more Galra chatter in this quadrant than there was a couple of hours ago.." With a sinking feeling, she knew why.

"So they probably know we're coming. Great." Hunk's voice still sounded congested from crying on the way to his lion. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't upset at Pidge—or Shiro, for that matter—but mostly he was just terrified at what could be happening to Lance. Last time any of them had gotten caught it was Allura, and she was taken straight to Zarkon.

"Let them come," Keith growled, gripping his piloting yoke tight enough to whiten his knuckles beneath his gloves. "There more of them there are, the more likely we are to find one that can take us to Lance." Through their comms, he heard Shiro make an affirming sound, then lean forward in his seat.

"Right. Watch each others' backs, and stay close. We can't form Voltron without Lance, so we'll have to be careful."

Several dim flashes of lights popped up on their screens, drawing their attention to the much closer facility. Galra battle cruisers now surrounded it, and more began to portal into the vicinity. Cloaking technology replicated from Pidge's lion and applied to the rest of the group would keep them hidden, but not for much longer. Keith took a deep breath, itching to rush forward and start getting answers.

"Is everyone ready?" Allura asked, watching all of them through the screens pulled up in front of her from the castle of lions. They all agreed, and within moments the area lit up with the sounds of heavy battle.

His tongue was dry enough that he could feel it crack as he stirred.

Lance carefully opened an eye as his consciousness sluggishly returned, trying to resolutely ignore the dull throb on the left part of his face. The agonizing stinging had settled into a sharp, itching discomfort, and he could feel fluid dried on his cheek. His breathing began to grow erratic, but he quickly tried to calm himself.

Wherever he was, Lance knew he was probably on his own right now. He had to evaluate his situation and see if there was any way to contact his team to get him out of there. He could only hope that Pidge had gotten back to the team, and that they were on their way to bust him out of.. Wherever he was right now.

Peering around, he discovered he had once again been moved while he was knocked out.

The room he was in now was much more spacious; about 20 feet all around him, and the walls were all rounded. Craning his neck with effort, Lance tried to look beside and behind the table he was still strapped upright onto. It was too stiff to turn past his shoulder, however, so he instead tried to listen in to see if anyone was there with him.

"..H..Hello...?" His voice cracked out, hoarse and dry. His right arm ached where he felt a needle inserted into it, and he heard the gentle beeping of several Galran consoles all around him, as well as a steady blip close to his left ear. A heart monitor, maybe?

Clanking from the high metal ceiling above echoed throughout the room, causing Lance to jolt at the sudden startling sound. He could feel the back of his neck sweating, and belatedly realized the white armour of his paladin suit was missing. The exposed, vulnerable feeling that washed through him instantly put him more on edge than he already was.

"I-Is anyone there?!" he called out, panic seeping into his voice. He wondered why he was alone, and what was going to happen to him. When Allura had gotten captured before, they took her straight to Zarkon, hadn't they?

The door in front of him opened. Lance swallowed a gasp. His vision was still blurry from whatever they had used to knock him out, and he squinted as he saw someone approach.

It was a druid; though it was one much smaller than the ones he and his team had previously encountered in the past.

They carried a sleek non-descript briefcase in their hand, along with what looked like an IV drip on wheels. Their tail peeking out from the dark robes wrapped was around it as they dragged it towards Lance. They approached silently.

Lance struggled against his bindings, thrashing desperately as they stepped closer. "Who're you?!" They didn't answer, and as they stepped in front of Lance, they reached over beside him. "S-Stop!"

The druid paused for a moment, tilting their mask up at Lance, before silently extending their hand further and pulling a small rolling table towards the two of them. They seemed to almost gently set the briefcase down onto it, and began unlatching the clasps.

"What are you doing?!" Lance demanded, resuming his struggle against the table he was strapped against. They answered with more silence. Deft hands lifted the cover, and Lance could see a brightly glowing violet vial about the length of his hand. A needle-like attachment was placed beside the vial, and the druid set to work on assembling whatever that was. Lance tried to stop himself from hyperventilating.

"What're.. What're you gonna do with that..?" His voice was watery and fearful, and that seemed to be enough to cause the druid to falter for a moment. They tilted the needle injector and attached vial in their hand, as if contemplating what to do with it, then again looked up at Lance.

"...It's to prepare you for surgery," they explained, voice surprisingly quiet. They sounded nothing like the other druids who all seemed to speak with a creepy rasp. Lance inhaled sharply.

"Surgery..?!" They moved to attach the needle injector into a small tube that fed into the fluid hanging on the IV, pushing the sharp section into it with a hiss. Frustrated at being ignored, Lance jerked against his restraints. "What surgery?! Answer me!"

They continued to silently work at the IV drip until pulling a longer tube that trailed from the bottom of the bag of fluid. The end of the tube had a small connector that they pushed into the needle in Lance's arm. He tried to pull away from them, but the tubing clicked into place, now clearly very secured. They moved back to the vial of glowing liquid, and pressed their purple fingertip against a thumbprint sized scanner on the device.

With an affirming beep, it began dispensing the liquid into the translucent bag on fluid currently connected to Lance. He watched with sinking horror as it spread into the bag and diluted its transparency with its bright, neon glow.

"What is that?!" He could begin to feel warmth that seemed to emanate from the fluid, and feared the worst. Were they going to knock him out again? What sort of surgery did they plan on doing to him?

The druid's tail swished slightly before wrapping around the IV carrier and pulling it slightly closer. "..It's.." Lance stared at them as they spoke up, eye opened wide.

"..A form of liquid quintessence. Soluble in most fluids found within organic lifeforms." They sounded like they were reading a boring textbook definition instead of forcing into the veins of a very scared Lance. "It contaminates any living tissue within a fifteen foot radius, so I will be giving you your injections at regular intervals to strengthen your body for the surgery."

Lance grit his teeth. "Then aren't you being contaminated right now?" The druid shook their head so slightly he almost didn't notice.

"Due to.. prior exposure, I'm not affected." They didn't seem to intend to expand upon that, and turned back to the briefcase to close it. Lance watched the glowing quintessence liquid slowly begin to seep down the tube connected to his arm, the warmth increasing in intensity.

"...It will burn a bit," they warned in a mumbling tone, clicking the briefcase shut and pulling it away from the table. Lance's struggling resumed. This couldn't be happening.

"W-Why are you doing this?!" he was nearly hysterical at this point, and could feel a slight burn begin to spread across his arm. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes. He wished his team was there with him. The druid watched his struggle with an almost subdued demeanor, looking down at the floor.

"Orders," they simply stated, and Lance's head sank. Of course. The burning began to spread even further into his shoulder, and he winced and shifted against the discomfort. His nose was beginning to run, and gravity pulled some welling-up tears down his cheeks. Lance nearly didn't notice when the druid moved in closer to him until he heard the rustle of their robes, then lifted his head up to come face-to-face with their creepy mask.

"You," they began, but paused, their muffled voice faltering as if unsure how to proceed. Lance was nearly overcome with the compulsion to smash his forehead against theirs, but the dull pounding in his face stopped him. From that close, he could hear them swallow.

"You are a paladin of voltron, aren't you..?" they notioned towards the door they entered from minutes prior, and Lance realized his chestplate was hung up a few feet next to it, blue voltron symbol taunting him from that distance away.

Lance narrowed his eye, lips twitching downwards into an angry grimace. "What do you care?!" They leaned in closer, undeterred. They were nearly bumping foreheads, and the druid dropped their voice to a harsh whisper.

"Answer the question."

He studied the mask in front of him, briefly wondering what kind of person was behind it, before the spreading heat pulled him from his thoughts. He let out an angry huff. "...I am."

They tilted their head to the side of Lance, speaking barely above a whisper into his ear.

"Then I'm going to get you out of here, human paladin."

They pulled back, and Lance's jaw slackened in surprise. "...What..?" They continued to step backwards while facing Lance, briefcase still in hand. From a little over three feet away, they paused, before speaking a final time.

"Knowledge or death, paladin."

The door swished closed as they left, and though those words meant nothing to Lance, and the slight burning now seeping into his chest, he couldn't help but feel a little bit of hopefulness from the strange encounter.

Who was that druid?

* * *

Keith could feel the Galran commander's gnarled fingers crack and shift beneath his heel as he ground his foot a bit harder. His screams seemed muted, and all Keith could focus on was the way the soldier's bones felt like rocks underneath his suit's shoes. He wondered if Lance was going through something like this right now.

He applied more pressure.

"S-Stop! Please!" Commander Vargo begged, face smeared against the cold floor of his fleet's commanding ship. His other hand was bound along with his feet behind him, and he struggled against the shameful position.

The red paladin seemed to respond to the pleading, and slowly lifted his foot off of his mutilated hand, now burning in agony. He whipped the appendage as close to his body as he could, and tried to flip himself over to face the paladin's surrounding him after their successful siege. He tried to look around to see if a single sentry remained, but only saw scraps of their metallic allow littering the compound.

A blur of green invaded his peripheral vision and he felt pain explode on his face.

He screamed, then instinctively used his free hand to cover the now injured area, and felt another sharp wave of pain and nausea course through him as he aggravated the broken bones in his hand.

"Shut up!" Pidge screamed back at the commander. She couldn't quell the emotion in her voice, and rapidly approached the cowering galra. "You were the one who handed Lance over to the empire, I checked the footage!" Her bayard lit up in her hand and she posed it threateningly in front of her, intent to use it very clear. "Where is he?!"

Panic seemed to overcome the commander as Pidge questioned him, but he quickly shifted into an angry grimace and struggled to turn onto his side, now facing the team. "I will not betray my empire!" he growled, and immediately Pidge's face morphed into an enraged scowl. Her bayard began to glow, but before she could dirty her hands, Shiro intervened.

"Pidge." His tone was even but final, and he approached the two of them with squared shoulders. They needed answers, and they needed them now, but they weren't going to resort to torture. Shiro wouldn't allow it, especially if it meant exposing someone as young as Pidge to it. He attempted to comfort her and place his hand on her shoulder, but she sharply shrugged him off and retreated back to Allura. Hunk was still, but his eyes were wide and expression livid. Shiro wasn't sure who the look was meant for.

He turned back to the galran, but before he could say anything, there was another brilliant flash of light, and a blast ripped through the air as a shot flew just past Shiro's robotic arm and nearly embedded itself into Vargo's skull. The sleek flooring exploded directly next to him, and he shrieked pathetically in fear as sharp debris flew is different directions.

"Hunk!" Shiro's displeased voice rang out as the yellow paladin marched forward, large bayard drawn and held in front of him. The two briefly made eye contact as Hunk walked past him, and for a moment Shiro wondered if Hunk would turn on him if he tried to intervene again; the tightly bound pure fury so evident in his features that he took a small step back and allowed his teammate to approach their captive.

He had never seen him that angry before.

"Lance. That's the name of the paladin you captured." Hunk looked down towards the shrunken soldier, and shifted his stance slightly before hefting his gun a bit higher. "He's like family to me, y'know? I'm sure the Galra have something like family." Commander Vargo stared up at him incredulously, and sniffed slightly as his now broken nose continued to gush.

Hunk leaned in, and pressed the firing end of his bayard against Vargo's chestplate.

"We'll find him, with or without you." It was a statement. There wasn't any trace of doubt in Hunk's words at all.

The circular muzzle of his weapon scraped slightly as he pushed it harder against the scuffed plating of Vargo's armor. "The only difference is that, in one of those cases, you bleed out on the floor all tied up and disgraced, and fade out into obscurity as a weak commander who fell to Voltron. Pick one."

Hunk powered up his bayard.

In that moment, when Vargo made eye contact with him, his expression was nearly vacant, mouth only slightly downturned. But it was his eyes; In his eyes he could see something cold and dark, and knew he should be very, very careful about what he did next.

But, he couldn't betray his empire. He was already well acquainted with the punishment for failure, but that was nothing compared to treason. A swift death here would be a blessing compared to that.

And yet sweat poured down his back as he stared up at his executioner. The others were behind him and didn't look like they were going to stop him.

He was going to die right now.

"I.." Vargo struggled against himself to find the right words to say. He couldn't. He couldn't.

The air within the ship stilled, quiet now save for the remains of his sentries occasionally twitching or crackling with diminishing electrical impulses.

"...The witch has him," he ground out, squeezing his eyes shut as if it would shield him from what he had just done.

Allura let out a quiet gasp, weaved through the others and immediately hefted him up with little effort. "Where?"

"One of her experiment facilities..! That's all I know..!" he gasped out, sagging in her grasp. His legs were still bound tightly behind him along with his other arm, which made the position he was held in unbalanced and unwieldy. Her grip tightened at his admission, however, and the vibrations from her shaking caused him to sway slightly.

"Which facility?! You must know more than that!"

"Only the druids and Lord Zarkon himself are permitted to know where the witch conducts her experiments..!" He struggled vainly to escape from her grasp. A plan was already forming in commander Vargo's mind; he needed to escape, to get as far away from these paladins as he could. He would outrun them, and he would outrun the witch who would undoubtedly hear of this.

In fact, he would outrun the entire damn empire if he had to. He could not bear the thought of dying as he was. He was going to rise to the top. He was going to be respected.

Allura dropped him back to the ground, seething. He coughed pathetically, and she was nearly overcome with the desire to crush the hand Keith had mangled earlier; before Shiro or herself could stop him. But it was clear they would get no quick answers from the one in front of them, and an idea quickly came to her. "Pidge, check the ship's last coordinates. We will start with that."

Her in-suit monitor lit up and Pidge quickly tracked down the information. Everyone was looking at her, silent with anticipation. Vargo perked up, seeing this as his best chance for escape. They didn't need him anymore, after all; they would pre-occupy themselves with that dead-end lead and leave him to escape and regroup.

Even if there was any chance they could track Haggar and her facility, he couldn't allow them to do so; it would be proof of his second failing. He would fall back, gather some fleets from some previous favors he had done through the years, and put an end to the Voltron coalition.

Tensing his ruined hand and silencing a yelp, he quietly reached behind him towards the hidden compartment in his suit; a small, quintessence-imbued dagger hidden within. It would make quick work of his bindings. Gripping would be extremely difficult, but he would manage, somehow.

"No you don't."

Keith stormed over, sensing something was amiss by the commander's silence, then when he noticed the dagger now slightly exposed sticking out from his hip area, lifted his heel up, and smashed it down against commander Vargo's face.


	4. Chapter 4

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also i did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, a large majority of Chapter 1-5 was written by them. However, i do own my Voltron OC: Kylee. side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. feel free to make fan art.)

* * *

Lance thought he had fallen asleep in the anti-gravity chambers they had at the Garrison again.

Surprisingly, the chambers were open to all aspiring cadets looking to learn to acclimate to zero gravity early on. All cargo-class and fighter-class cadets were encouraged to spend as much off-time as they pleased in the chambers during operational hours, and sometimes Lance would do his homework there.

He wasn't allowed to have any paper, but he could bring in a tablet, and that was just as good for him since he typed a lot faster than he wrote. It was a bit difficult to adjust to the nauseating feeling that washed over him while trying to focus on his screen, but after a few visits he had acclimated nicely.

Almost as fast as Shirogane, an older faculty member on shift at the anti-grav chamber remarked, and Lance beamed with pride that day. As far as he knew, that Keith guy didn't spend very much time here since there were always at least a few people floating around (literally), and it felt nice to have one thing to hold above the other cadet.

It became such a habit to spend his off time there, that occasionally Lance would fall asleep. Coming to after falling asleep in an anti-gravity chamber was definitely a bizarre feeling.

At first, it feels like you're still asleep, floating suspended in comfortable room temperature. Then as consciousness returns, panic hits you as you expect to start falling.

Which was exactly how Lance felt when he came to once again. The medication they pumped him full of made him woozy, and at first he didn't remember where he was or what had happened. He was floating, numb from any discomfort. Then he could feel the chill in the air, and the dull throb blossom on his face.

Panic hit him, and Lance almost expected to start falling.

He was still strapped in to the upright table they brought him in on, however, and couldn't even budge an inch. Right. He was a prisoner. He looked around.

Same room as last time.

It was mostly quiet aside from the electronics around him, letting out their constant hum he was now starting to grow accustomed to. The castle of lions had a similar sound to it, depending on where you went, but it wasn't nearly as loud. The pleasantly bright lighting of all the rooms also offset the slight noise.

Looks like the Galra don't care much about euphonics or interior design. Lance couldn't help but to let out a quiet laugh to himself, despite the situation. He wasn't in very much pain, aside from his face which still ached quite a bit. Thinking for a moment, Lance tried to focus on different parts of his body.

He knew he should feel aches all over, both from the blast he was hit with when he was initially captured, and from the rough treatment afterwards. His vision in the one eye was still just.. gone, and Lance pointedly avoiding thinking about why that was.

He tried to wiggle his toes, but they were too numb. His foot twitched sluggishly instead.

Thinking was also pretty difficult, so Lance figured he was still probably very medicated from.. whatever it was they did to him. The passage of time also seemed warped, and he was having a lot of trouble figuring how long he had even been awake for. Was it a couple of minutes, or longer than that? It was hard to tell.

He was starting to wonder how long it would be just him and the steady beeping of his heart rate monitor, before a familiar figure entered the room. The small druid with the tail quietly but swiftly approached, pulling the same IV drip and carrying the same brief case as before.

Their other hand was hidden beneath their robes and appeared to be holding something new, but even while squinting Lance couldn't make it out.

The back of his throat ached as he tried to squeak out a greeting, but it sounded nothing like his normal voice. It cracked like it did when he first hit puberty, and in different circumstances Lance would have probably been embarrassed.

Within moments the druid was next to him and set the suitcase down next to the same table as before, flicking the IV drip into place. They snapped their gaze behind them to check the door, and as they did their hood jostled from the quick motion. For a brief moment, Lance caught sight of.. skin? blonde hair? ..What? Was he hallucinating?

As quick as he saw it, it was gone, and replaced itself with a faceful of their mask, now pressed up inches from Lance's face. They spoke quickly, and softly. "Drink." The cloak covering their arm lifted and fell to the side. A translucent pouch of clear liquid was held up to his mouth, and Lance's eye widened.

They were giving him water? They made an insistent motion to drink, and for a moment panic seized him and he feared it was a trap.

But Lance remembered what they said to him last time.

Why bother doing all all that if they had already captured him and had him at their mercy? There was no need to feign kindness at this point. Whoever this druid was, they were someone Lance felt like he could trust. He was also extremely thirsty.

His lips parted, and before he could thank them, they stuck the suction part of the pouch into his mouth and squeezed.

Immediately sweet, sweet relief flooded his dry mouth. It was caked with grime and blood and initially the water he greedily swallowed tasted foul, but Lance barely registered it since he was so desperately thirsty. He hadn't even realized it until that point. It was amazing.

"Quickly," they whispered, and Lance could only make a noise of affirmation in between swallows. The druid turned again towards the door, and through the distortion of the pouch he could see a bit more of their face through their robes. Were they... cute? They looked almost... human.

"They're nearly here, I'm squeezing in the rest," they warned before grasping the pouch and pushing the rest in. With the warning, Lance was able to stop himself from choking, and let out a quiet, pleased exhale after finishing. He cleared his throat.

"Th... Thank you," Lance mumbled, still drowsy from the medication. His throat felt a lot better though. From afar, he could hear some muffled chatter grow near.

The small druid quickly resumed their normal set up, and went to work on assembling the IV and quintessence injector as before. Their body language seemed almost hesitant this time, however. "...You don't.. have to thank me," they murmured, and held up the syringe injector

as if to show why thanks weren't necessary. Lance shook his head.

"..It's okay, I get it. Undercover business, right?" His words had a slight slur to them, but he hoped the other understood what he was trying to say. They gave a small nod, and turned to insert the injector into the IV.

Now, there was a question pressing against Lance's mind urgently, as the mental fog began clearing. It felt like he had been out for a while, and he felt.. off. He couldn't explain how. He was clearly medicated, but it wasn't as if he was acting out enough to warrant something like that. They put him out for a reason.

"Hey, uh, did.. did they do something to me..?" The druid's hands stilled.

Twenty feet away, the door swished open with a mechanical whir, and a group of tall, imposing druids poured in. They were silent now, whatever conversation they were having prior to entering the room ended. Their footsteps were almost non-existent, and only the drag of their cloaks could easily be heard. Lance fearfully watched them approach as the smaller druid worked beside him, feeling the familiar warmth of the quintessence emanate onto his skin as the concoction began seeping into the tube connected to his arm.

There were seven druids including the one next to him, but only one of the larger ones approached.

"Varis." The smaller druid twitched slightly, and after affixing the injector turned to their superior. Through the fear Lance realized that must be his helper's name.

"Injection complete, sir," they reported, voice sounding more cold and mechanical than it did when they spoke to Lance. They gave no indication of remorse or hesitation whatsoever. If they truly were an undercover agent, they were clearly very good at it.

"Dismissed," the druid ordered, and the other quickly took their leave, weaving through the other six. Lance tried to watch them leave, but his face was quickly seized by the druid in front of them.

"Hmm.. a success, by the looks of it. Healing nicely." Lance squinted at the ugly, bird-like mask currently scrutinizing him, and and gritted his teeth against the harsh grip.

"What'd you do to me?!" he growled, trying to wrench his face away.

At that moment, Lance realized what happened.

The vision was beginning to return out of his eye that was definitely ruined.

"What did we do, paladin? We have done nothing but give you a gift, courtesy of the high priestess herself."

The gift—the implant—and what the druids called its "near perfect integration to his central nervous system," needed very little in-person observation to ensure it was functioning properly. After the group of druids left, Lance realized they all probably came down with the main intent of screwing with him. Their taunts ate away at his slowly returning mental clarity, and Lance truly began to understand the direness of his situation.

He could see just as well as he did before—before that other Galra ruined his eye. If anything, things seemed more crisp than ever, and when Lance closed his regular eye, aside from the slight sky blue tinge everything had, he would call his vision perfect.

But why? Why would they injure him, then fix what they inflicted? If the commander's actions weren't planned, why didn't the druids just not bother and leave him as he was? Were they afraid of risking an infection if they left the wound untreated?

No, Lance shook his head, neck swaying slightly against his tightened restraints. They had their own versions of Altean healing pods; his team had run into sectors of Galran outposts that had healing pod rooms not dissimilar to the one in the Castle of Lions. They could have thrown him in there without going through all the trouble of giving him some kind of.. bionic eye.

His cheek twitched and lifted his lid against the implant, trying to feel for any difference between his normal eye and that one. He felt a slight lift when his lid moved up to cover his cornea, and that side of his face maybe felt a bit warmer than the other, but that was about it. Learning anything else about what they did to him seemed impossible.

Lance tapped the back of his head against the cold metal of the table he was strapped to, and fought back tears of frustration.

Hours and hours passed, or what felt like hours, Lance wasn't sure since keeping track of time in the room his was in wasn't possible. Had it been a day now? At some point he fell asleep, and woke up to the familiar sensation of a dry ache in the back of his throat.

His stomach was definitely empty, but didn't growl with the telltale signs of hunger. Whatever that IV liquid they pumped into him was, it was probably sustaining him somehow. But only barely. He felt weak, constantly tired, and his muscles were stiff from disuse.

The heart rate monitor beside him had become nothing more than white noise to him by that point, and Lance began to wonder how long he was going to be here for. A small part of him almost wished for something, anything to happen to get him out of that room. He was alone with his thoughts and his anxieties about his team and whatever was happening to him, and Lance felt like he was going stir-crazy.

The small druid returned some time later, routinely bringing with them the roller and briefcase, and Lance was determined to figure out more about what was going on.

Once again, the druid had hidden with them something beneath their cloak.

"Hey," Lance greeted, startled by how croaky he sounded. He hadn't been doing much in the way of talking lately, and his voice reflected that. Though if they noticed, the other said nothing to indicate this.

"No one will be coming today." Their voice a near whisper as they set up their tools. They pulled out another packet of water, uncapped it, then pushed it against Lance's mouth. "Take your time." Lance greedily accepted and began downing the entire thing.

As he did, the tell-tale clicking of the briefcase latches beside him echoed throughout the room, reminding him why they were really here. Right, answers.

The needle was inserted once again into the drip after being attached to Lance's arm, and as the uncomfortable warmth began to seep down into his veins, the packet was removed from his mouth. He took a moment to catch his breath and wait for the slight brain freeze to subside.

The druid remained quiet as they watched him.

"Uh.. Thanks, again, for that, uh, Varis?" They seemed unused to receiving any thanks, and turned their mask down towards the ground, shuffling their feet awkwardly before giving a small nod. "Do you know why they keep having you do this, though..?" Lance motioned with his head towards the IV next to him, and they looked back up to him.

"...To prepare you," they began, and their voice held an almost sad tone to it. "This mixture is injected into... specimen, to prepare their body to not reject any alterations or implants made to it."

"But that's what I don't get," Lance implored. "Why would they give me my eye back? I'm a paladin of Voltron! They're supposed to hate me, not help me!"

The druid shook their head. "That wasn't to help you. It was to see how well you would adapt to having your nervous system slightly modified." They lifted a hand towards the IV. "You did so with almost no issue, so they're preparing you for the final phase."

"...Okay t-that sounds pretty scary.. What's the final phase..?" Lance was almost afraid to ask, and his throat felt dry despite his earlier drink.

They were silent for a moment. "I'm not entirely sure, but from what I've overheard, they're talking about transferring you to something, or somewhere.."

His breathing sped up. "W-When?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know why they're doing all of this?"

"..I don't. But." They hesitated for a moment, before seeming to steel themselves and lifted a trembling hand against their mask and pulled. Lance's eyes widened.

They looked human.

They looked human.

"While I'm still working on a plan, I'm going to get you out of here before any of that happens."

After the shock of meeting another (half) human subsided, Lance could feel his ever-dwindling sense of hope reignite.

Soon after, the druid—Kylee, not Varis, they revealed—hastily went to make their way out of the room, but not before reaching into their robe once again and pulling out a small oval-shaped item, wrapped in purple foil. They pulled on each end until something resembling a cough-drop rolled out.

Before Lance could ask what it was, Kylee popped it in Lance's mouth, and a bizarre, sour mint flooded his taste buds. The taste was overpowering, but wasn't the most unpleasant thing he had ever tasted.

"Wha-" being that he was so unused to eating anything by this point, his mouth took over by producing way too much saliva, which poured out when he tried to speak.

"Humans need to maintain dental hygiene, and this will help in place of brushing, for now," they explained with an almost amused smile, brushing the ground with their tail. Lance swallowed, and tried to mirror his expression. His breath must have been pretty awful up to that point to make them risk smuggling toothpaste candy to him. He laughed.

"Alright. I'll make sure to brush next time you visit."

They made a perplexed face before nodding anyway, placed their mask back on, assembled their supplies, then swiftly left.

He watched as they went, then swished the weird candy around his mouth thoughtfully, revelling in the clean feeling it left in his mouth in its wake. It was bitter, but the refreshing mint was almost pleasant. It soon melted and Lance exhaled through his mouth, trying to focus on that instead of the burning now beginning to pulse through his body from the injection.

It was harder than before, since his veins felt much hotter than they did in the past. The dull discomfort started coming in waves, and it was impossible to conceal a wince every time the ache returned.

To distract himself, Lance tried to think about what he should do next. There wasn't much he could do, of course. He was still strapped to an upright table with basically no hope of escape, aside from relying on Kylee. An ally? He wasn't completely sure he could trust the druid yet, even if they hadn't done anything to prove otherwise.

It almost seemed too good to be true that he just so happened to encounter some undercover secret agent half human who said they wanted to help him. But, Lance also piloted a giant cat robot in space, so, stranger things had happened in his life.

Lance suddenly perked up at the thought of his lion. Blue! Maybe.. Maybe he could try to reach out to her or something? Allura told them at one point that the lion and pilot were supposed to share a special bond, or connection.. Since the druids had earlier taunted him by burning his suit and helmet to avoid being tracked, he figured it would be next to impossible for his team to find him now.

But if there was some way to connect to his lion, maybe there would be a way for her to find Lance. In the past, when he piloted Blue, he could always feel a strange sensation in the back of his head. It was gentle and soothing, yet overpowering all at once. Sometimes it would send images or feeling directly into his brain, and so he assumed that was her talking to him, or doing the cat robot ship equivalent of it.

He closed his eyes, ignoring the discomfort of the raised bit of his eye implant. He had nothing but time now, anyway. Might as well try to see if he could do anything to change his situation.

Breathing deeply, Lance cleared his mind and began to concentrate.


	5. Chapter 5

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also i did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. However, i do own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. feel free to make fan art. Also i wrote Kylee's escape of the galra ship.)

* * *

After several hours, He gave up with a frustrated sigh.

" maybe i'm too far away.." he mumbled to himself as the door slide open and he was greeted by the small druid and taking notice of his hands as the half galra teen took off his mask, the blue paladin frowned at the movement of his tail and how his hands seemed to tremble slightly. Kylee tried to keep his trembling under control as his tail flicked sharply against the ground and he felt himself starting to lose to the panic that was clawing at him.

"So that's what you normally look like?" Kylee flinched, his train of thought broken by the human paladin's warm tone. He looked down at his hands to see his skin was its normal ivory white.

" my stress must be affecting my disguise spell...Listen, Lance, we don't have much time. I overheard that they're going to move on to the final stage, I believe Haggar and the other Druids are going to place your quintessence in a robeast and have you attack your friends, the other paladins. " The half-breed felt a sting in his heart as the taller teen started to panic, but ran a hand through the brunette's hair in an attempt to calm him, remembering Thace used to do it when he was younger after his dad died. The small blade member allowed a small smile as the other relaxed slightly.

"I'll be back for you. I promise. I'm going to do get an escape pod ready, alright? Just wait a few ticks." Lance gave a small shaky grin.

" it's not like I can move around here, Lee." He replied and made emphasis by shaking his wrists and ankles in the cuffs that were welded to the table. The blonde snickered.

"No jokes in a serious setting, ocean eyes. I'll be right back." Kylee then focused and his face and hands turned purple then he slipped on his mask and left the room. Lance suddenly felt heat rush to his face and a tingly sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"O-Ocean eyes?"

Kylee glanced around and made his way down the halls, heading towards the docking bay of the escape pods and began to activate one when he froze at the sound of a blaster charging up.

"Don't move, half breed. " snarled Zolya, two guards on either side and trained on the blonde.

"Take him to the high priestess to be dealt with. I'm sure she can make use of him, maybe turn him into a Robeast perhaps." Kylee reacted quickly and shot out a blast of light, temporarily blinding the three galra and made a dash for the room where Lance was being held.

"Okay, Lance, we're on a time restraint so I'm gonna have to-" Kylee glanced over at the table to see that the blue paladin was gone and felt panic set in and tried to focus,using a quintessence location spell, only to receive a blast of purple energy as he felt it tear through him, crying out in pain as the energy cut through his skin and he quickly began to bleed in heavy amounts. He skidded across the floor and slammed hard against the wall as he was cornered by Zolya and the two guards.

" impudent cub. " The Druid growled with disgust as he stepped closer, Kylee bared his fangs underneath his mask and felt something burn in his stomach as he let out a roar of anger and fired an energy blast and to his surprise the color came out red but he pushed that aside and forced himself up, quickly leaving the three smoking bodies behind and tried to focus through the pain of his injuries and managed to find Lance, who was unconscious but otherwise unharmed for the most part and gave a shaky sigh of relief.

" thank the stars..." he mumbled to himself and started to fiddle with the restraints when the alarms sounded. Kylee swore under his breathe as he felt tears prick his eyes.

" Lance, I'm coming back for you. I promise. Just hold on until I find your friends. I'll bring them back to help me rescue you, alright? " hesitating for a mere moment, the half breed placed a kiss on the Cuban's forehead and ran out of the room, quickly getting into another escape pod only for moments later, drones began to attack. Kylee dodged the best he could despite the injuries and blood loss, his vision was starting to blur as he lost an engine and fumbled for the hyper drive stick, pulling it back and felt the g-force push him against the seat then it abruptly stopped as he saw a space ship come closer into view. The blonde was starting to black out but quickly sent out an a distress signal as he start to drift off, being lulled by a sense of warmth and a soft growl inside his head.

* * *

Hunk shifted on his feet slightly, putting his weight onto his left foot, then his right. He had been standing in front of the blue lion in its hangar for some time; staring up bitterly at its stationary face.

In the past, when Pidge and Shiro went off to collect data from a fallen Galra cruiser and were nearly killed in an explosion, their lions reacted and came to save them. Clearly, the ships had some level of sentience, and in times of direct peril could leap into action.

Hunk didn't doubt for a single moment that Lance was absolutely in danger in the hands of the empire. A seizing shiver travelled through his body. He was losing sleep over all the things they could be doing to his best friend right now.

He continued to stare up at blue.

Why wasn't it doing anything? Why hadn't it moved since Pidge came back alone?

Everyone was exhausted from the constant search to track Lance down. Pidge, of course, was running herself into the ground trying to find him, devastated with guilt. She and Hunk had been pouring through database after database from ship after ship for any trace of Lance and his whereabouts.

Any high profile prisoner transfers from the time he was taken to the present were tracked to the best of their abilities, and the two of them had finally been forced to take a break from developing their new program to covertly hack into the empire's central database (where all previous attempts had been unsuccessful). Two days of mind-numbing coding had worn them down until they couldn't think straight, and after hitting a mental block, made the decision (also at the insistence of Coran and Shiro) to rest up, refuel, and get back to it once their heads were clear.

Anxiety followed Hunk back to his room, however. Though exhausted, when he closed his burning eyes, all he could see was the wall of code that was stumping him against a dark screen. Flashes of all the terrible things that could be happening to his friend interspersed the lines. They had all heard each other scream in the heat of previous battles, so it wasn't hard for Hunk to unwillingly conjure the horrible sounds to go with the visuals in his head.

After realizing there was no way he could get any sleep at that point, Hunk decided he'd go make something to calm himself down, then give it another try.

Hunk hoped to track Coran down on the way there or back to see if he had anything Hunk could take to sleep, because as wired as he was, he wanted to rest and get back to work as soon as possible.

On the way to the kitchen, Hunk passed by the hallway that led down to the lions hangars. He stood there, staring down into the dark corridor, lit by the comforting blue lights adorning the walls.

He found himself in front of Blue in its hangar soon after.

Without realizing it, the anxious clenching in his chest had shifted into something hotter, angrier. He balled up his fists tightly as salty tears stung his already reddened eyes.

"Why don't you do something?!" He hissed, knowing full well the blue lion wouldn't respond. Why would it respond to Hunk when it didn't even respond to its pilot who was undoubtedly in extreme danger? Who was probably being tortured right now?

Hunk wasn't stupid. He may have found himself thrown into the war with his friends when they were only students, but it didn't take very long for them all to realize the severity of what was at stake, and the horrific things the empire was capable of and was actively doing.

They were hurting his friend, his brother, and all the sentient ship that was supposed to protect him in times of great peril was doing was sitting in its hangar having a staring contest with Hunk.

Silent. No movement. No hint of any life, of any intention to help them find Lance. He sniffled and squeezed the tears from his eyes, tilting his head towards the ground. None of this was fair.

"Paladins, to the bridge, immediately!"

Allura's echoing voice through the castle's announcement system shot through the hangar and snapped Hunk up immediately to attention. He whirled around towards the door and dashed towards the bridge as instructed. What was going on?

He turned a corner and nearly slammed into a sprinting Keith, who narrowly avoided Hunk but kept his gaze tracked ahead to his destination. Hunk hurried beside him.

"What's—" he gasped, struggling to regulate his breath. "What's happening, Keith?"

"No idea," Keith turned to glance at Hunk before looking back ahead. "She didn't tell us to go to our lions though." He sucked in a breath. "Means there's probably not a fight."

"Do you—do you think it's something about—" Hunk found it difficult to even say Lance's name. Keith seemed to catch on to his hesitation.

"Hopefully. C'mon." The two made their way with as much haste as they could, and nearly skidded into the bridge minutes later.

The rest of the team was already there, crowded together beside Allura at her controls. As he gasped to catch his breath, Hunk could see Pidge's chair off to the side had her laptops strewn on the seat, already up and running again, despite their agreement to take a break. Hunk considered for a moment that he was upset by this, but then remembered he hadn't actually gone to rest either, and was much more distracted with whatever the group was currently staring at on the holo-screen in front of Allura.

"Take a look, you two," Allura beckoned, and enlarged the semi-translucent screen. In front of them, they saw the empty vastness of space; a nearby galaxy brightening the black void with a brilliant jade hue. In front of the brightest part of the star formation was a tiny object that was slowly growing larger by the second. It was something that seemed to be coming closer towards the ship, but was still a ways off.

"It's a ship," Pidge explained, and Allura pinched that part of the screen and pulled both hands apart from one another to enlarge the section. "Doesn't look to be hostile," she added.

When the image filled the screen, a small craft that was distinctly Galran came into view. Even with the slightly grainy video-feed quality, it was obvious something was wrong with it. The left wing appeared badly damaged and was expelling smokey fumes into the vacuum of space. The view-port in the font was cracked and frosted, and several parts of the top section sparked dangerously.

Pidge typed away furiously at Allura's feet, pouring over the data the castle's scans were sending in. Hunk dropped down on a knee and looked over her shoulder at the information.

"That's not a normal Galran hailing frequency.." he mumbled, with Pidge quietly affirming it. Everyone around them seemed to hold their breath at this revelation.

Each division of the Galran empire had their own unique frequencies for various situations, but all tended to relatively similar once someone with a good eye for patterns (Hunk) took a closer look. After large scale battles, Galran soldiers would often hail the larger surviving fleets for extraction to regroup, so the team knew what to look for when an enemy soldier was hailing for backup.

"It's not one of ours either, though.." Keith made a noise behind them, frustrated as that meant it probably wasn't Lance. He backed up a step and stared up at the craft.

"Lance knows the frequency he's supposed to hail if he's trying to reach us, so that can't be him." He narrowed his eyes. "This is probably a lure for an ambush."

Hunk's heart sped up. An ambush. That was a possibility. Having a single damaged aircraft drifting towards them might cause them to lower their guard and go to investigate, only to be taken by surprise with an entire fleet worm-holing in. Hunk glanced nervously up at it and swallowed.

"It's not firing or really doing anything, though. It's just sending out an S.O.S in a code we don't use." He stood up and pointed at the craft. "What if this is Lance? What if something's wrong and he can't remember the normal code or something?"

Hunk imagined Lance doing everything he could to escape the Galra, only to be shot down by the very team he was trying desperately to get back to. "We can't risk attacking it; It could be him!" Hunk levelled his gaze at Keith with clear determination.

He knew Keith's habit of shooting first, asking questions later. But even if an ambush was probable, if there was any possibility this was Lance, Hunk wasn't going to risk it.

Keith, surprisingly, looked down meekly. "I'm just saying we should be careful. We don't need to shoot it down.." He gave Hunk a vulnerable look. "Especially if it is him."

Shiro nodded, and gestured towards the raised seats for each paladin. "Let's get into a defensive position. When the ship come in range, we'll trap it inside the shield then dock it in an isolated bay and meet whoever's down there."

Coran sped over to his console, readying the shields. Allura lifted her hands, a familiar gesture to the team by that point; she was readying the castle's weaponry. "Any sign of an ambush and we fully retaliate," she instructed. Everyone made quiet sounds of affirmation, then got into position.

With bated breath, the team watched as the galran craft came closer towards the castle, only one thruster seeming to be functioning by that point. According to plan, when it was close enough to the castle, Coran slammed down the encompassing spherical shield behind it, effectively locking it inside with them. It was pulled towards the docking bay's auto-dock function and sputtered inside.

"Coran, continue to monitor the external area, but be ready to activate internal defenses if our visitor is hostile." He nodded, eyes not shifting from the screen in front of him. Allura turned around to look at the rest of the team.

"Everyone, ready your bayards. We're going."

The damaged door of the craft hissed open slowly with a worrying creak. The team stood fifteen feet away with weapons drawn, waiting anxiously. Hunk considered initially going straight in instead of waiting for whoever- or whatever was in there to come out (in case it was Lance and needed their help, in case Lance was in there but couldn't move), but after Pidge confirmed that all traces of biological mass within the ship were somehow intentionally being cloaked, he decided against it.

After a few moments, smoke began seeping out of the opening, and they heard a barely audible, but distinctly human pained groan. Keith gasped.

"Lance?!" he launched towards the craft's opened hatch, Shiro narrowly missing his arm to stop him. But Keith was fast, and he didn't have any doubts. It had to be him.

The rest of the team followed after as Keith disappeared into the smoke, pausing at the entrance to try and peer in.

"Lance?! Where are you?!" he called out, thankful he put his helmet on before rushing in. The interior was quickly filling with dark fumes, and he could barely see. He heard coughing to his left in the corner. "Lance! I've got you!"

Hunk's heart stopped. Pidge sucked in a hoarse noise that sounded close to a sob.

Keith's back appeared to them as he hunched forward, pulling and coming down the ramp. They ran over to help him get Lance away from the ship. He was wrapped a dark cloak and there was blood staining it.

A flash of blonde hair stopped everyone in their tracks.

"..What.." Keith whispered as he dropped the arms of who he was holding. They hit the ground with another pained groan. He stumbled back, lifting his sword at the stranger. "That isn't Lance."

At the sound of his name, the figure dragged themselves up to a hunched over position, and nearly ripped the dark hood covering their blood matted face. A galra?

He wheezed and coughed painfully before trying to speak. "I... I know where he is."

They slumped over, hit the ground, and fell unconscious.


	6. Chapter 6

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-9 were me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

* * *

Kylee jolted awake, panting heavily as he looked around to see he was being glared at by four humans and two alteans, from outside some sort of holding cell. He frowned softly at the fact his wounds weren't even cleaned up, much less treated, he felt uncomfortable and stiff in dried blood clothes as well as having it caked on his skin.

"But then again, why would they treat me? I'm the enemy that took their friend according to them." He thought to himself, flinching slightly as the yellow paladin stepped forward.

"Who are you? You said you know where Lance is, where is he?" There was a pause of silence for a brief moment then the blonde spoke up.

"My name is Kylee. I'm with a resistance group known as the blade of Marmora. We infiltrate Galra occupied planets or sneak on to ships and gather information." He explained as he used his tail to reach around and pull out his blade, Keith flinched at the sight of it, frowning when he noticed the stone embedded in its hilt wasn't glowing then quietly touch his own and spoke up after a few minutes.

"How do we know that isn't a fake?" Kylee sighed softly and mumbled that they didn't have time for this.

"Look, I came here to come get you so you could help rescue Lance. He's on a ship about maybe a Varga from here, I don't know, I started to black out from blood loss. But I overheard the druids talk about putting Lance in a robeast. " the group gasped and Shiro swiftly turned to the shortest of the four humans.

"Pidge, grab the location of where the craft disembarked from. We'll track the ship and locate Lance." Pidge nodded and ran off.

"I'm coming with you." Kylee stated in a firm tone, his tail flicking about slightly, irritated at the mere idea of anyone objecting.

"As if we would allow such a thing, how do we know you won't get ahead of us and lay out a trap to capture us all?" The blonde held firm underneath the princess's glare, his light pink eyes seemed to turn dark with a raging fire underneath.

"I left Lance to find you. I regret it with every drop of my quintessence having to leave behind the human I fell in love with. Why would I turn on his only hope of getting out alive?" They flinched at the teen's bold statement.

Kylee let out a shaky sigh as he tried to focus and performed the quintessence location spell but it was hard as his wounds started to reopen and started to wet his cloak with fresh blood, Keith felt a pang of guilt as he watched the blade member perform the spell as the paladins took cover behind a hallway wall from gun blasts from the sentry bots.

"L-Lance...should be about three halls down and the third door on the right...I'll buy you some time." He slowly stood up and performed a quick healing spell to at least temporarily clot the bleeding. He then stepped forward, gracefully dodging the blasts then fired an energy pulse that shut down some of sentry bots, the paladins managed to slip past them and ran towards the location of where the blonde said Lance was located but Keith skidded to a stop when he heard a blaster go off and looked back to see Kylee holding his side. The blonde looked back at the raven haired teen and glared at him.

"What are you doing?! Keep moving, red paladin! Go rescue Lance! "Keith gritted his teeth but turned around and kept running, surprised to feel a stinging sensation behind his eyes.

Kylee struggled against the metal table he was strapped to as a Druid placed some type of metal collar around his neck, he flinched as it disrupted his disguise spell, revealing his ivory white skin which was still caked in dried blood. The Druid then typed in a few keys and brought up a holographic screen that showed details on Kylee's quintessence.

"Astonishing..." the Druid whispered underneath the mask then quickly left to go get the high priestess. Kylee struggled against the restraints, opening his wounds even further and he winced in pain.

"Well...at least the paladins and Lance are safe ..." Kylee thought, their mind going through the moments they had with the blue paladin, a few of them lasting on longer than necessary and chuckled at the memory of when the brunette made a joke or two during the short time they had together. But all of that stopped when a woman with long white hair, draped in a hooded cloak stepped into the room with two other druids in tow. She looked down at him then at the screen, Kylee felt a primal fear being underneath those glowing eyes and black markings seemed to glow with a dark red sheen in the lighting of the room but he glared at her none the less.

"So this is the half breed, Valdare? "She asked as she looked over the screen

"Yes, high priestess. He was helping the paladins escape. "The Druid explained

"And I'll die before I tell you anything." Kylee snarled with venom in his tone, the whites of his eyes turning yellow for a brief moment. He grunted in pain as a pulse of dark energy hit him.

"Be Silent." The Druid ordered and Kylee suddenly felt gravely ill and as if he was being full exposed to everyone despite being dressed as a black and purple aura washed over him.

"W-What...what are you doing to me?" He whispered as he tried to fight off the sensation.

"If you feel the need to know, I'm reading your quintessence down to the last drop and it seems not only do you have elemental fire quintessence and you have a strand of ancient Galra within you as if the sight of your tail wasn't a giveaway, how very rare I thought they all died out long before Emperor Zarkon's ruling…Now then as for what to do with you, do not worry, your quintessence is too valuable to be made as a robeast. You'll be something entirely new, yes, we'll make fine use of you, little half breed." Haggar replied, Kylee felt terrified at the glee in her rough voice as large vats of pure quintessence rose up out of the floor and the Druids that came with her attached tubes to the collar around his neck and thick IVs were forced into his arms and felt a wave of nausea wash over him as he felt the room spin and vision started to blur at the edges, he managed to glance at the tubes connected to the collar the best he could to see glowing red liquid flow through the tubes and into the vats of pure yellow quintessence, turning it a bright orange that reminded the blonde of lava which he had seen a few times in his life.

"Is...That my..quin..." His words slurred as he blacked out.

* * *

Shiro moved down the hall with quiet stealth with the other three paladins close behind, after a few moments the black paladin nodded.

"Okay, Keith, go ahead." The red paladin nodded and made his way over to the scanner pad on the side of the door and after a few beeps the door opened, bayard at the ready but to his surprise there was no one in the room.

"Lance, come on, buddy. " Hunk spoke in a hushed whisper, lightly tapping on the boy's cheek, trying to contain his joy that his best friend, his brother while a little worse for wear was alive and breathing. Keith made a noise of urgency.

"Hunk, we don't have this kinda time. We gotta go now. Pidge, hack into the system and unlock the-"The four paladins froze in terror as a blood curdling scream tore through the ship, Lance suddenly jolted awake.

"Lee! W-where's Kylee?" Lance looked around wildly and tugged at the restraints, barely being heard over the screams that didn't seem to stop. Lance flinched when he felt hands cradle his face in a firm but gentle grasp.

"Lance, listen to me, alright? We'll find him. You just need to stop moving for a moment until Pidge unlocks the restraints otherwise you might dislocate your wrists or ankles." Shiro explained and the blue paladin nodded trying to keep himself grounded but whimpered at the sound of the screams, soon the restraints were off and Lance made a move to get up and run towards the screams but the room seemed to tilt and sway and the Cuban boy found his face pressed against yellow paladin armor, Lance whimpered and clung to Hunk.

"I got ya, Hermano." Hunk held Lance close, shooting a concerned look at the others. Keith couldn't stand it anymore, the screams didn't seem to stop, he quickly turned to Pidge.

"Can't you find out where it's coming from so we can go stop it?!" Pidge flinched and started typing away.

"I'll hack into the systems cameras and look at the room locations." After several minutes, the other paladins frowned at the look of horror on the young paladins face as she swore in a shaky tone at the image on screen.

Kylee woke up with a groan, last thing they remembered was the druids hooking up tubes to that collar they forced on him then the dizziness as well as the nausea while red glowing liquid flowed through the tubes and into the vats and now they were here.

"But where is here...?" He asked himself as he looked around to find that he was on a beach, he remembered beaches from the few pictures his father kept. The water lapped at his ankles, he heard a low rumble and turned to see a rather large volcano in the distance. He walked along the shore, taking in the sights when he came along some greenery along the shore and sat down to rest.

"Well where ever I am it is pretty nice..." suddenly, the volcano erupted and spewed out fire and ash as lava bubble up from underneath the water and slowly starting to turn the rest of water into the boiling magma.

Kylee felt panicked as he tried to figure out what do, how to get out this place, of any plan really when suddenly he was back in the galra ship and he let out a blood curdling scream as dark orange quintessence began to pump into him and by the stars he had felt no pain like it, he thrashed hard against the table, animal desperation compelling him to try and break free despite it obviously being a lost cause. It felt so hot, so unbelievably hot. It was if they injected lava into his system and planned to kill him from the inside out. He screamed and thrashed as his eyes turned red and his pupils to slits as the whites of eyes turned yellow and his white skin turned purple as his blonde hair turned snow white and his ears turned pointed, his fangs grew longer and sharper and his nails turned to sharp deadly claws as red markings appeared on his arms as well as his face and on the rest of his body, tears of lava formed and slide down his face until his voice gave out but continued to scream despite no sound coming out, eventually it stopped and he laid there limp and dull eyed, every time he panted whisps of fire left his mouth and tears of lava continued to flow, his vision started to blur as he lost consciousness.

"Process complete, high priestess." Haggar looked her new experiment over then gave a firm nod.

"Undo the straps then subdue his mouth, feet,hands and place him in a subzero containment room." The Druid nodded and just as he undid the restraints, Keith bursted into the room, bayard drawn and the whites of his eyes turned yellow with a burning rage. In one swift movement, he sliced though the two druids and made a move for Haggar, only to snarl in fury as she teleported away.

The red paladin slowly managed to calm himself as he went over to Kylee.

"Kylee? " He gently shook him and frowned when he got no response, shortly after Shiro came on his helmet's intercom.

"Keith, grab Kylee. Hunk's got Lance, meet us back at the lions."

"Right. See you in a few ticks."

* * *

The Princess gave sigh of relief when she saw the red and black lion come into view.

"Keith, Shiro, come in. Were you able to retrieve Lance?" She asked for the communication channel, concern laced in her voice. A moment later, Shiro appeared on screen.

"We did but he's unconscious from stress, the galra...they put some kind of eye implant into him and Kylee..." Shiro had a look of anger and pity in his eyes then gave a soft sigh.

"We're coming in. Coran, have a healing pod ready for Kylee and Lance might need one too."

Once the lions docked inside the hanger, Allura and Coran went to meet them with looks of worried concern on their faces as the black and red lions lowered their heads and opened their mouths. Shiro came out with Hunk and Lance who was still unconscious but had nothing more than some bruises around his left eye, the black and yellow paladin's faces were tight with emotion when Keith and Pidge finally came out. The smallest of the paladin's eyes seemed abit red and puffy, Keith's violet eyes almost seemed black with burning rage. At first, the two alteans merely thought it was out of what had happened to Lance until they finally took notice of the druid cloak that Keith was carrying on his back, last time they saw it, it had been a rich purple but now it seemed almost black with how much blood it had soaked up. They watched as Shiro came over and Keith almost seemed reluctant do so but handed whatever was underneath to the team leader. The princess and her advisor gasped with wide eyes as the hood fell back, revealing Kylee's face and white hair but she quickly gained composer as best she could and turned to Coran.

"Coran, are the pods ready yet?" The older Altean nodded, Hunk and Shiro went to the medic unit of the castle. Once Kylee and Lance were prepped and placed in healing pods, Allura and Pidge came into the room, Keith and Hunk wouldn't take their eyes of the pods while Coran was typing away on a holographic screen.

"What happened to him, why does Kylee look like this?" Allura asked, looking at the frosted glass. Keith gripped his arms tightly as he tore his eyes away from the glass, trying to keep his anger in check.

"It was Haggar. She experimented on him, she took this glowing red stuff out of his body then that stuff got put into a vat of this glowing neon yellow stuff and it turned orange and was pumped back into him. Then..then he started screaming and his skin turned purple on its own and-"

"Wait, on its own? I don't understand. I thought he was Galra. "Allura seemed confused. Keith mumbled that wasn't really the thing to focus on but was cut in by Pidge, who gave a worried look at the frosted glass then spoke up.

"He looked human when the collar got put on him; it disturbed some sorta cloaking he had on to make him look more Galra."

"Anyway, Keith did I hear you say glowing red stuff was coming out of Kylee? Then that means…holy quiznak, King Alfor's theory was right." Everyone seemed confused.

"Coran, what are you talking about?" Allura asked with a slightly raised eyebrow

"Princess, your father had a theory that every being that lived had a certain type of quintessence that could be categorized into five certain colors and represent specific elements. He also theorized that could be made into elemental magic as well. This is why he believed our scales came in only purple, red, blue, green and yellow. Until he met your mother, he had never seen pink and it amazed him, told me himself he had never seen scales more beautiful." Allura smiled softly at that. Coran cleared his throat.

"Anyway, I believe Haggar mixed Kylee's red quintessence with pure raw quintessence. From what we've gathered so far on data from the empire, filtered quintessence is light violet in color. The poor lad had raw quintessence mixed with his own and shoved back into him, warping his very DNA. "He pulled up a screen and looked it over.

"He's mostly Galra then human now. Ancient Galra at that, I thought they died out deca-phoebs ago. Far before when Zarkon came to power."

"Ancient Galra?" Keith asked with curiosity in his voice, Coran typed in a few keys and a different screen came up.

"There isn't much information on them in the castle's data archives but what I am able to tell you is that ancient galra bonded in packs and protected one another with their very lives. They also had an Alpha and Omega system. This type of thing is common with other planet's species besides ancient galra, like the Lucarins for example. They also have an alpha/omega system. Now alphas make good leaders and are protective of their pack members, like number one or the princess. They can also have bad tempers and be overly cautious with outsiders like number four. Omegas are caregivers and produce offspring, they are also highly cared for and looked after by alphas. Omegas also make good peace keepers and tension diffusers which I'd say is number three. Our undercover companion here, according to the scans from the pod, is an alpha with omega attributes. Very rare, they have tempers and protective instincts like a normal alpha but they feel the need to make nests and tend to be a little clingy when in heat as well as be produce offspring however rare it maybe. They also were once connected to a quintessence realm called Galdora, however there isn't any information it in the castle archives but I assume it's like what we Alteans have which is Oriande."

"Oriande? What's that?" Pidge asked as she leaned against an empty healing pod, Allura smiled softly.

"My father told me stories of Oriande as a child before bed. He told me stories of a beautiful pink clouded place and a castle in the sky guarded by a marvelous white lion, saying only those pure of heart would be able to pass its tests and learn the secrets of quintessence magic. I asked him how to get there and he told me that white lion had to visit you in a dream. Although now that I'm older I feel it require something more than just dreaming about the white lion for it to just show up. But I still believe in it, after all…maybe that's where mother and father are…" Allura smiled softly as tears pricked her eyes and quickly wiped them away when a beeping came from one of the pods, they looked over to see Lance's glass dissolve and he was quickly caught by Hunk and Keith, the bruises on his face gone.

"Hermano, can you hear me?" The yellow paladin got a soft groan in response.

"Probably still drowsy. Best take him to his room." The two nodded at Coran's suggestion and left the medic bay with the blue paladin.


	7. Chapter 7

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1 was written by them and so was a large majority of chapter 2. Chapter four however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

* * *

Lance woke up with a soft groan and panic gripped at him but he relaxed slightly when he realized he was in his own room and saw Keith leaning against the wall, practically half asleep, near by.

"Hey, Keith. Where is everyone?" The raven haired teen got off the wall and stretched before speaking up.

"uh, I think Allura is her room with the mice. Pidge is trying to set up that gaming system you two bought at the space mall, Hunk is stress baking, Shiro is in the training room and Coran is still in the medic bay with-" He was cut off when he heard a snarling growl come from the medic bay, the two teens looked at each other then headed in the direction of the noise along with the other paladins and the princess to see Coran patting down his clothes and hair from small flames as the medic bay doors slide shut.

"Coran, what happened?" asked Shiro, his face etched with concern, looking him over to see if he was burned anywhere else.

"it's Kylee, His pod was finished and when I went to help him up off the floor, the lad lash out at me with literal fire I might add. The witch really did a number on him that's for sure."

"what? Can we see him?"

"just a moment, number three" He replied to the Cuban boy as he pulled out a tablet pad and pressed in a few keys before handing it over to Allura.

"okay, now we can all go see him. The particle barrier is up and the stunner orbs are on standby"

Pidge raised an eyebrow. "you have those in the medic bay?"

"yes, do you not have those on earth?" Replied Allura with a look of confusion of her own

"uh, no. We wouldn't need to, we have sedatives and-"

"can we just check on Kylee, please?" the red paladin cut in and everyone went inside to see Kylee pacing back and forth on all fours, growling softly before finally settling down in the corner, small flames coming out of his mouth every time he breathed out and focus his attention on Lance who stepped towards the particle barrier and placed his hand on the surface with a sad look in his eyes as he watched the white haired teen hiss at him like a cautious feral stray cat as his ears tilted down ever so slightly as his ancient galra tail flicked back and forth rather quickly.

"Allura, lower the barrier"

"I'm not even sure that's not Kylee anymore, Lance. That's nothing more then a wild animal. Removing the barrier is too much of a risk, you saw how Coran looked. How do you know he won't do the same to one of us?"

Lance felt a cold stinging sensation run through him and he recognized it as anger, he doesn't mean to be angry with one his best friend's and former crush but it wasn't fair to label the teen as nothing more than an animal just because of how he was acting at the moment.

"He saved my life! He's my friend! I can get through to him! He's just scared and probably acting on pure instinct, last time he was awake he was being tortured on a galra ship! I bet he doesn't even see us right now, I bet he thinks he's still on that ship with Haggar and her Druids!" He kept getting more and more agitated, unaware of a pitcher of water near by was shaking and trembling, some water was spilling slightly and he was distracted from his anger when he flinched at the sound of the pitcher shattering, bits of ceramic pottery and water got on the floor as Lance slowly started to calm down. "look, I've spent some time with him so he'll most likely remember and trust me. Allura, remove the barrier, please."

Allura sighed as she removed it but had the tazer orbs floating around lazily on stand by just incase which Lance frowned at but focused his attention on Kylee, who was still sitting in corner with his back against the wall and watching Lance's every move as his tail flicked back and forth. Lance took a step forward and knocked over a table, making a loud clattering sound and swore softly underneath his breath and Kylee snarled at the sudden movement and bared his fangs then exhaled unleashed a jet stream of fire, Lance somersaulted out of the way as the stream fire caused the particle barrier glitched a little.

"Lance!" everyone shouted in concern as Lance panted and placed his back against the wall, watching Kylee who was glaring at him. Then the teen started sniffing as he picked up a scent and his thin slitted pupils dilated slightly as he made his way over to Lance on all fours but suddenly he cried out in pain as the taser orbs start blasting at him and his markings glowed red and he snarl, baring his fangs then swiped his glowing red claws at the taser orbs and lava splattered on to them and they fell to floor in piles of metal goo and wiring then kept making his way to Lance

"Lance, get out of there!" Hunk shouted

Lance swallowed but held his ground

"No, he's just mad that Allura tasered him. I can calm him down"

He flinched as Kylee had him pinned with his claws on either side of his head and blushed slightly at the fact that if the situation were different then he'd probably be turned on by this but wiped those thoughts away and looked into the hybrid's red eyes with pupils so constricted they looked about as wide as a sewing needle.

"Lee, remember me? Ocean eyes? Your not on the ship anymore. Your at the castle of lions with me and the other paladins. The Princess and her advisor too." He reached out and touched Kylee's face while speaking in a tone he used to calm stray cats he used to bring home when he was little. Kylee flinched and growled softly but slowly stopped and relaxed as Lance stroked his cheek with his thumb. " there you go Lee, that's it. "

"L-Lance...?" Kylee's voice was mixed with confusion and fear as his markings stopped glowing.

"yea, buddy, I'm here. Haggar is long gone. We're safe. " The blue paladin replied as he felt himself blush slightly to hear Kylee actually purring as the half breed passed out against him and the rest of the gang gave a heavy sigh of relief.

Kylee woke up half asleep and nuzzled further into the scent of sea spray with sandlewood and a hint of lily. He purred louder and breathed in a little deeper, waking up abit more and opened his eyes to realize he was clinging to the blue paladin with his tail loosely draped over his waist. He started to move away as his ears tilted down slightly in embarrassment, heat rushing to his cheeks.

"sorry...I'm not used to much physical contact, blades aren't especially touchy with one another" He mumbled softly, Lance nodded in understanding

"it's cool. To be honest...I thought it was kind of cute " he flinched slightly when Kylee got closer and sniffed him abit more. "uh, dude?"

"you smell bad" Lance scowled at him and he replied quickly. "no I mean you smell...upset? Anxious...? What's wrong? I mean I'm open if you wanna tell me"

Lance swallowed and looked away. "I-I'd rather not talk about it...at least not yet anyway..."

Kylee nodded softly then sat up, glancing around and found his blade suit and changed into it, not really caring Lance was in the room who blushed bright red and quickly looked away.

"s-so um, what are you gonna do now?" He asked as heard Kylee zipped himself up

" I need to get a hold of headquarters, tell them where I'm at and what information I was able to gather. Would the princess allow me to use her communication device?"

"I don't see why not but you better ask just to be sure" Kylee nodded and went off to speak with the princess and after some discussion, Everyone gathered at the bridge while Kylee pressed a few buttons and on the screen, Kolivan showed up looking serious as usual.

"this is a frequency channel known only to blade members, how did you get it? " He demanded but his yellow iris less eyes widened slightly as when he saw the smaller blade member come into view.

"Hello,Kolivan. It's me...Kylee"

"Kylee, what's happened to you?"

"that's not important right now. I'm currently with the paladins of voltron and their princess. During one of my missions I was able to download some information, where's the closest meet up point?" The leader of the blades grew serious once more.

"about 8 quintents away on a planet known as Danrakite, you remember Rigel, correct? He and a new member will be meeting you there behind the shop that sells Sendeyar tech."

"if your against Zarkon's rein as we are then why don't you join us and we put our efforts together?" Allura asked

" I suppose. See you until then, Kylee."The transmission ended.

"Well, that happened." Pidge said out loud in a somewhat bored tone

* * *

Lance blinked as he looked around, walking on the aquamarine water, occasionally looking that the aquatic life underneath his feet and felt a sense of freedom as he grinned, running and jumping taking pleasure in the fact no matter how hard his feet hit the surface he stayed on top rather than falling through. He let out a laugh as he ran along the surface and saw a blue lionness out of the corner of his eye.

"Blue! Hey, girl!" He exclaimed with joy only to be tackled and nuzzled by the large wild cat. He snickered and scratched her ears.

"Nice to see you too, how about a race?" He asked, once she got off him and received a roar in answer.

"Okay, on your mark, get set...go!" He took off as fast as his feet would carry him, confident that he would win but frowned slightly when he heard no paws behind him.

"Blue?" He slowed to a stop and turned around to see that she was gone and the sky was thick with dark clouds, thunder rumbled and wind picked up as the water underneath him turned dark. The blue paladin gasped sharply as heard the witch's laughter as a tsunami rushed towards him and pulled him under, tossing him around in inky abyss as he tried to find the surface but only darkness surrounded him as his lungs burned for air.

The Cuban boy jolted awake with a gasp as he trembled in his sweat soaked clothes, his pulse pounded as the optical implant he received from the druids stung and rubbed at it until the stinging sensation went away then got up from his bed, thinking a walk would help relieve his shot nerves.

He nearly jumped a foot in the air when he heard a soft roar come from the hangars and decided to go check it out to see Kylee, sitting criss cross in front of the red lion with his back to it. He sat down and watching the other teen who was clearly focused and struggling with something as his markings glowed and sweat began to form, steam rolling off his body. Suddenly, his body loosened and he panted heavily as his eyes opened as his markings stopped glowing and he wiped the sweat from his face and growled softly in irritation. Lance flinched when he suddenly slammed his fist into the floor, surprised he made quite a dent in the metal flooring.

"Oh, Lance. I'm sorry, I was just trying to find my quintessence stone...at least then I could control the amount of fire I put out and stop with the lava tears..." Kylee explained when he finally took notice of Lance near him.

"It's cool. But what's that? Your quintessence stone?"

"It's uhh...well, Red told me it's like a physical representation of my magic? Like once I'm able to grab it I should have a better handle on the amount of fire I put out and be able to access my subset element, lava and also be immune to fire as well as lava. Red also told me that the place I tried to get it from, my quintessence realm is messed up because of what the witch did to me. "Lance touched his right eye in thought as he felt a pang of sadness hit him when suddenly the alarms blared and the two teens quickly got up and made their way to the bridge, where everyone else was at, all still in their sleepwear.

"Coran, what's going on? " asked Allura as her advisor pulled up a screen to show several ships with a rather large one at the center.

"Everyone, get to your lions" ordered the princess, the five paladins nodded and left. Moments later the lions appeared on screen and soon drones were sent from the galra ship to deal with them when suddenly the alarms went off again.

"Now what?" Kylee asked in an irritated tone as Coran pulled up a second screen to show a galra solider heading right towards them, weapon drawn. The half breed growled, tail flicking back and forth.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of him." He stormed out of the room and the two watched as the fire wielder easily took care of solider with his speed and a well placed punch that sent him flying into the wall but his gun went off and the plasma bounced around the room, taking out the security camera.

"Quick, bring up another camera! "Instructed the Altean princess. Kylee frowned at the fried tech.

"Maybe Pidge can fix it?" Their eyes widened and quickly snarled in rage as their ears caught the sound of laughter.

"Haggar! Show yourself!" He looked around while walking around the halls, barely moving out of the way when the witch came out of the shadows with her claws crackling with energy. He swiftly turned around and charged forward, throwing fire become more and more frustrated as she would teleport just before the flames hit her.

"What you did to Lance, to me, is unforgivable!" He roared as his markings and arms suddenly glowed bright red glowed as blue fire came from his hands, melting the metal wall as behind her as she once again teleported away, growling in anger. He flinched as she suddenly appeared in front of him and he opened his mouth and ready to spew fire when she vanish and reappeared behind him.

"You think you've won, little half breed? Just because you've managed to escape? How amusing. I created you, I own you." Her voice was cold and Kylee growled as he swiftly turned around, raking a flamed claw through darkness where she once stood.

"I don't belong to anyone!" He inhaled sharply as she reappeared before him and he turned around to attack her, seeing her claw crackle with dark energy.

"You belong to me and in turn you belong to the Galra empire, little half-breed." His eyes widened in pain and cried out as he felt her claws dug into his side, the dark energy coursing through and around him. The blade member's anguished cries rang through the intercom and the paladins felt fear grip at them.

"Kylee!" they shouted but focused on the large ship that had an energy cannon focused on the castle of lions.

"Team, form Voltron! Pidge, the moment we're formed you active the shield" Shiro ordered

"Right." She replied and once Voltron was formed they got in front of the castle just as the cannon fired at blast of yellow light and it broke through the green lion's shield, enveloping the mecha in a golden light with the paladin's cries of agony becoming distorted over the intercom until they cut out altogether.

"Paladins!" Allura and Coran shouted but shielded their eyes from the light and when it faded, the large galra ship was gone with only the lions separated and floating listlessly among the broken and destroyed galra drone ships.

"Paladins, can you hear me?" Allura felt panic claw at her and she tried again.

"Hunk? Pidge? Anyone, please...answer." She trembled slightly but tried to keep her composure.

"Coran, what about Kylee?" Her advisor quickly typed in keys and was finally able to pull up a second camera. The blade member looked unconscious and in immense pain as his side had glowing claw marks on it with thick black veins at the edges of the wound.

"Is she still on the ship?" Coran pressed in a few more keys and replied that she wasn't and that she must've teleported off the ship and took the soldier with her.

"Alright then. Activate the gravity beam and pull the lions in. We'll figure out what to do from there."

Shiro was glowing purple and jumped from cloud to cloud, enjoying the calming breeze as he raced against the black lion when suddenly the lion vanished and the clouds swirled together and created a whirlwind vortex, tossing the black paladin around like nothing more then a rag doll and felt as if the air was being wore from his lungs when he saw a glowing purple gem, he reached out as far as he could, his fingers barely brushing against it. He gritted his teeth and tried again, feeling a sense of peace wash over him as he clasped his hand around it and felt a roar within him as the winds calmed and clouds turned back into fluffy white puffs.

Shiro jolted awake, gasping and panting heavily just as he fell out of the healing pod and looked around to see five other frosted healing pods which he assumed were Kylee and the other paladins. He ran a hand through his hair as he slowly calmed down to notice that he didn't have his robotic galra arm anymore but a sleek all white altean robot arm that had a glowing purple altean air symbol on the shoulder.

"how long have I been out?" He thought to himself, walking past a mirror to see what his hair had grown out with some stubble on his face as well as having purple markings on his face and gasped when he got a good look at his eyes to see that they had turned a rich purple from their normal dark grey.

"Just what in the world happened to me?" He asked out loud in a shaky tone.


	8. Chapter 8

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

* * *

The black paladin turned towards the sound of the medic bay doors sliding open and saw Coran.

"Oh, thank the ancients. At least one of you is finally awake." Coran spoke with relief in his voice.

"Coran, how long have I been out and why do I look like this?" Shiro asked confusion clear in his tone but he also felt a sense of relief for no longer having galra tech attached to his body.

" I'd say you've been in your healing pod for...maybe thirteen Quintants. As to why you look like this, the blast you all took to protect the castle overpowered the lions and forced them to shut down and the magical currents that ran through all of you must've infused the five of you with large quantities of raw quintessence would explain your purple markings since you have air quintessence. As for your arm I believe the amount of quintessence it was exposed to cause it to overpower and explode so we built you a new one. I'm actually surprised you're the first one to wake up since we put you in last in order to fix up your arm." Coran explained while pulling up a screen and looked it over.

"According to the readings from the pod, the blast from the raw quintessence increased your speed and strength beyond that of a normal human. Just as it did for numbers two, three, four and five. The blast also increased Keith's galra DNA as well but not by a large amount, perhaps because it was isn't injected into him directly like it was with Kylee." Shiro frowned

"Speaking of which, what happened? We...we heard him scream over the intercom." Coran glanced over at the teen's frosted pod

"We aren't exactly sure, a plasma blast from a gun knocked out one of the cameras and we had quite abit of a time trying to locate another one that was in the same area where we could get a decent enough shot to figure out what was going on but from what the two us heard, Haggar got on to the ship and attacked Kylee. She left some sort of wound on him, the markings were glowing and producing these thick black veins. Allura and I aren't entirely sure but we believe the lad has been infected with dark quintessence but to what extent we aren't sure." The orange haired altean explained

* * *

Keith was glowing red and climbing a mountain, eager to get to the top when suddenly red lightning came from the cloudless sky and struck the mountain causing it crack and split open, sending the teen flying off and just as he was swallowed up by the darkness he saw a glowing red lioness look down at him as lava slowly poured the cracked open mountain, he landed on red sand with a dull thud and with a glint of determination he tried again and was able to reach the top but when he got there, the red lioness was sitting at the top and staring at a pool of lava; Keith looked inside to see a glittering red gem and after a few moments of hesitation, He thrusted his hand in and grabbed the gem, hearing a powerful roar deep within him. Keith jolted awake, panting heavily and looked around just as the front of his pod dissolved, falling into Shiro's arms.

"I got you, Keith. Looks like you have them too. But yours are red. So then you have red quintessence like Kylee." Shiro said, his eyes looking over Keith's face.

"Well, he does pilot the red lion after all. Seems like that would be kind of obvious." Coran added in as Keith made his way over to a mirror and looked himself over to see he had red markings on and around his eyes as well as on his cheeks and moving down his body, his eye color had turned from violet to red although the pupils remained round but he had fangs and his ears were pointed but he didn't have sharp claws or a tail like Kylee. He imagined Lance would call him a vampire if he saw him like this, the red paladin pushed that aside and turned to Coran and Shiro.

"Wait, so what about that meet up that Rigel guy and the other blade member that was supposed to see Kylee?" Coran and Shiro looked at one another, then at the teen.

"When Allura and I got you all in your pods we contacted the blade headquarters and explained what had happened with everyone, he said he would inform Rigel and the other blade member and that they would take a ship to ours and discuss the plans here." Keith got up from the wheeled chair he was sitting in, listening to Coran's explanation.

"Okay, great. Let's go meet them." The black paladin gently pushed him back down in the seat.

"Don't get up just yet. I'll wheel you out." Keith frowned but allowed it, casting a glance at the four remaining frosted pods then faced forward again. Keith noticed Allura first who came forward and got down to his level to properly hug him which he returned then noticed the first galra in a blade suit who stepped forward to shake his hand, he wore silver hoop earrings and jet black hair.

"Greetings, my name is Rigel. My undercover position is Commander. I look forward to working with the voltron coalition." He spoke, Keith nodded and glanced over at the galra who has his hair in a braid with purple markings on his face and his rich purple eyes held a glint of mischief, his ears were decorated with winged earrings that dangled droplets of clear gems and he had an eyebrow scar on his left side and Keith wasn't going to lie and say he didn't find this young man quite attractive.

"Hello. I look forward to working with you all of you as well, my name is Lotor. I'd tell you my undercover position but it's not really undercover it's my actual title. I'm the banished prince of the galra empire, my father is Zarkon and My mother Honvera, an altean quintessence magic user and the red paladin of old,she and King Alfor worked together and created the lions as well as the bayards." Keith tensed, searching for any lies hidden in his eyes and relaxed when he found none and they all began discussing plans as Pidge came out of her pod, escorted by Coran to her room looking a little worn out while sporting green markings on her face and green colored eyes rather then the brown color she was born with. Eventually Rigel and Lotor left and a moment later, Hunk came out of his pod with yellow markings on his skin and his brown eyes had turned yellow.

"Ugh, I had this weird dream I was climbing sand dunes and yellow was there and we were digging together then asteroids started falling down on to the ground I almost got crushed by one but I moved out of the way and then one of the asteroids split with a sparkling yellow gem in it. I remember grabbing it then I heard yellow roaring and then I woke up." Hunk explained to anyone in the medic bay who was at least pretending to listen to him.

"That wasn't a dream, number two. I'd say most likely you visited your quintessence realm. Now we're just waiting for Lance and Kylee to wake up." Coran explained and so they all waited and waited and waited until Keith was literally smoking with frustration to where he was creating feet shaped scorch marks on the floor.

"Relax, Keith. They'll wake up soon enough." Shiro reassured, although Allura frowned in concern.

"It has been quite a long time. Perhaps, I should go into one of their realms and see how they're doing."

"Whoa, you can do that?" Asked Pidge who was sitting in a chair near by, curiosity in her green eyes.

"My mother taught me what she knew since she had pink quintessence like me. I know how to heal and enter other's quintessence realms. She also taught me how to purify dark quintessence but there wasn't much of it on Altea so I was only ever to purify small amounts. Coran, open Lance's pod." The advisor nodded and pressed a button, Keith and Hunk caught Lance then placed him on the examination table.

Allura stepped forward to reach out and touch the Cuban boy when suddenly the alarms went off and everyone went to the main bridge to see galra ships close by, Keith growled.

"We don't have time for this, Allura, can't you just open up a wormhole and get us out of here?" Keith asked, only to see to see a laser blast headed towards them and Coran quickly put up the particle barrier; the castle shook from the impact.

"I guess not..." He grumbled and they started to head to the hanger where the lions were kept when a blur of pink and blue caught his eye.

"Did you guys see that?" Keith asked the three other paladins who looked confused.

"Well I didn't see anything. Did you, moon cutter?" The four of them flinched and swiftly turned around to see a feminine male looking being with blue skin and blue markings, he had yellow sclera and rich blue eyes and he had his gloved claws pointed at Allura and Coran who were lying on the floor their bodies contorting and twisting in unnatural positions as their faces were stricken with pain filled expressions. A guy with pink skin and pink markings smirked with his scaly tail wagging lazily.

"Nope, not a thing, Aurora. Say, could you tell us where your keeping the half breed? He's got red markings like the pretty boy over here." He gestured to Keith, who growled and rush forward without thinking then flinched as he ducked out of the way as a pink crystal shot past his cheek, sticking into the metal wall behind him and Keith along with the others were quickly subdued when the one called Aurora pointed his other hand at them and moved it in sharp jerked motions, Keith felt as if some invisible force was putting his arms behind his back and forcing him as well as the three other paladins to the ground.

"Fine. Don't tell me, I'll look for it on my own." The one named Moon Cutter replied, sticking out his tongue at them, the numbers 628 shown in black.

"Keep them there, Veil. " He said to the other as he turned around and walked off, the pink crystals sliding back into his tail. Keith tried to focus through the pain, but he started to panic when he heard the sound of tearing metal.

"I found him! He's in a pod!" The Red paladin's eyes widened as heard glass shattering.

"No! Leave Him alone!" He thought as he struggled against whatever was keeping him to the floor and curled up in such a uncomfortable position, his markings started to glow the harder he fought, managing full himself up off the ground and on his knees, red lightning coiling around him.

"Don't..you..dare touch him!" He managed to get out in a strangled tone as he released the lighting, the red electrical charge leaving his fingers and aimed at the blue skin teen who barely managed to dodge the attack. The teen's face shifted from surprise to rage as he gave a jerked hand movement and Keith felt as if his arms were forced behind his back and he was being pushed down flat on his back, Keith felt terror run through him as he was positive that any moment his spine would snap in two.

"Aurora, knock it off! Haggar never said to kill them, I got what we came for. Let's go." Keith felt his body being released from the unseen force and struggling to move quicker as he watched them run off with Kylee's unconscious body, the black veins had gotten worse.

" no! " Keith scrambled to his feet and gave chase as the two intruders headed towards the hanger. The red paladin stumbled slightly as he ran and threw a fistful of fire at them, his body moving on instinct, the two easily dodged the flames. He fell to the floor and struggled to get up again, his legs and arms screamed in protest and tears pricked at his eyes as the enemy ship left the hanger.

"No! Please!" He shouted as the enemy ship started to get more and more distance between them, he his jaw to the point where it started to ache and slammed his fist into the metal floor, creating a dent in it. A few moments later, Shiro came in and helped his little brother figure up off the floor.

"Don't worry, Keith. We'll get him back." He reassured gently and Keith swallowed the lump that was starting to form in his throat.

Lance was tossed around in the icy water like a rag doll, hearing muffled thunder above as his lungs started to feel like they were on fire.

"Please, someone! Anyone, help me!" Lance thought in a panic as his lungs couldn't take it anymore and he started to intake water when suddenly he was yanked out by his jacket, he coughed and gasped, spitting up the water that had entered his lungs. He finally noticed that everything had became calm and soothing again, the water was stable enough to sit on and the water below was filled with colorful coral and sea life once more.

"So your Lance, huh? It's nice I finally get to meet you after all this time rather then just hearing about you from Blue." Lance flinched and swiftly turned to see a tall blue humanoid sea dweller being standing casual there.

"W-who are you? How did you get here in my dream?" Lance asked, his voice a little raspy.

"My name is Blaytz and I'm the blue paladin before you and this isn't a dream, lance. We're in your quintessence realm and how I got here is because you called out for me, Blue just helped me get through." Lance's eyes widened slightly


	9. Chapter 9

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

* * *

"Allura, do you have any idea what that guy did to us? Like how he did it? It felt like my muscles and bones were tightening, felt like I'd snap in half at any moment." Hunk said in between the silence and clinking utensils.

"I believe...I believe he was using dark quintessence magic, water style, given the blue markings on his skin. Father told me that dark quintessence water magic users would manipulate the water in other living beings. My father wasn't able to perform magic like me and my mother but he did study it. He told me that quintessence magic has light and darkness within it. Those who chose dark quintessence magic were mentally unstable if they kept using it constantly. I imagine that Haggar must've somehow taught him dark quintessence magic. "She explained as she moved her food goo around.

"W-we're in my quintessence realm? Does that mean I can do elemental magic like Kylee? " Blaytz nodded but Lance frowned and looked away.

"I'd probably suck at it though..." Suddenly Lance was pushed down, feeling big paws against his shoulders and a tongue against his hair, Blaytz grinned.

"Blue? " the blue glowing lioness rubbed against her current paladin before sitting next to her old one who looked at her then at Lance.

"People often over looked me because I was different but the blue lion recognized something in me, something others couldn't see. It saw the greatness within that even I did not. You, Lance, have greatness within you as well. Your so much like myself and yet so different. You're a remarkable person, don't ever forget that." Lance felt tears prick at his eyes at Blaytz's words when suddenly, dark clouds started to collect and the water started to shift and rock as it turned dark, the blue lioness faded away.

"What's going on?!" His voice filled with panicked concern.

"it's Honvera! Well, I guess you know her as Haggar, she must've forced her way into your quintessence realm somehow! "He shouted above the thunder.

"Who the heck is Honvera?!" The water swirled and out came Haggar yet her body was black with a red outline, her eyes glowed a haunting yellow. The blue paladin of old swore to himself.

"I'll tell you later! Just find your quintessence stone! I'll buy you some time, just focus on calming your realm." He called out as the blue bayard appeared in his hand shifted into a trident then charged at the intruder.

Lance swallowed and sat down on the water with his legs crossed and tried to block out the fighting in the distance and focused on his breathing until it evened out and he felt his body relax, the water no longer shifted and became still as it turned crystal clear while the sky turned blue with puffy white clouds and Lance allowed himself to sink down to the colorful color and sea life below. The Cuban boy noticed something blue and sparkly in a coral bed and swam towards it. Once he reached out and grabbed it, a powerful roar echoed through the water.

Blaytz panted, feeling exhausted as he struggled to stand. Then steeled himself and rushed forward, getting more frustrated as the witch kept dodging only to be forced back by a black and red energy blast when suddenly Lance shot out of the water like a rocket. The former blue paladin's eyes widened as he saw the blue markings that decorated the current one's skin and began to feel a sense of pride as a grin graced his lips as the human teen landed next to him.

"Get away from my friend, you old crone!" Lance shouted and raised his fist then swung as her, a massive fist of water hitting her and skidding across the surface. While doing this, a lioness made out of water appeared behind Lance.

"Now, stay out of my head!" He exclaimed, the lion roared at her, sending out icy frost which froze her into an ice statue to which Lance shattered into pieces with a water fist. Moments later, Sharks skimmed the surface and ate the chunks then swam away. The Cuban boy turned around and place a hand on the snout of the giant water wild cat.

"Thanks, blue." The creature purred then slowly dissolved into the water.

"That was pretty cool, kiddo. Just don't let it go to your head, your form could use some work." Lance frowned in confusion

"My form?" Blaytz nodded

"It's kinda just basic punches. On my planet, when we used the water, we moved as if it was moving apart of ourselves."

"So then can you teach me how you did it?" Blaytz tilted his head in thought then shrugged

"Why not? I'm not doing anything else" Lance grinned excitedly and they began practicing until the two blue paladins were feeling worn out and just listened to the waves and watched the sea life underneath with the glowing blue lioness laying nearby.

"So, who is Honvera?" Blaytz chuckled and ruffled the other's hair.

"I'll tell you some other time. If you need my advice or even just feel like you need someone to talk to, ask Blue to come get me." Blaytz then turned into sea foam that blended in with the rest

Lance jolted awake with a sharp gasp, realizing that he wasn't in his lion anymore but in his room and in the medic bay suit with his jacket on.

"How long have I been out of it?" He wondered to himself as he got out of bed, his legs a little wobbly from disuse and used the wall for support until he made it to the bathroom and looked at his blue markings on his face and around his eyes and felt a sense of pride particularly at the two on both sides of his neck, being reminded of the gills that the former blue paladin had. After straightening his hair to its regular appearance and brushing his teeth, he washed his face then changed into his normal shirt and jeans when the door slide open. He looked up to see Hunk who rushed towards him and held him in a tight embrace.

"H-Hunk...can't..breathe, buddy.." the yellow paladin quickly let go and wiped his eyes as the Cuban boy caught his breathe.

"Sorry, I'm just so happy to see you. Lance, you've been out of it for nearly three weeks. "

"Three weeks?! Oh, man. It didn't even seem that long with all that training Blaytz gave me..." Hunk raised an eyebrow

"Wait, Blaytz? You mean the paladin before you? You actually met him? That's so cool! " Lance gave a small smile.

"Yeah, he was pretty cool. " He replied as the two headed out of Lance's room and everyone brought him up to speed on what happened, although Keith looked more frustrated and sleep deprived more than usual. He looked around for Kylee but assumed the teen had gone back with the blade members that had been to the castle while he was still in his pod and felt abit of sadness wash over him but quickly shook it off.

"So, you guys wanna see how my training went with Blaytz?" Coran and Allura flinched with looks of surprise.

"You met Blaytz? How?" Both asked in unison, the teen thought for a moment.

"I think he said since he and I both have blue quintessence and both pilot Blue that he's able to enter my quintessence realm with Blue's help. But I don't know how Haggar got in since it looked like she had red quintessence..." the two Alteans exchanged looks but then quickly looked back at Lance with small smiles.

"Lance, my boy, how about you show us what Blaytz taught you?" Coran asked, his voice chipper.

"Yes, please do, Lance. I remember watching him try and teach father since he had blue scales. He'd get so frustrated when all he could manage was a simple ripple." Her voice was filled fondness.

Lance glanced at the large containers of water that were placed near by and at the bots that were on standby.

"Okay, Coran. I'm ready!" He called out as he got into his stance then the buzzer went off at the robots ran towards him, weapons at the ready. Lance acted quickly and spun in a tight circle and water followed and moved around him, he moving his arms in a graceful manner and created a water whip which lashed out and sliced through the bots that held swords and spears then he shifted his footing and flecks him fingers outward, the water that was circling around him rushed towards the last three bots and encased them in ice.

"How was that?" He called out to the six of them that were watching from the training room's observation area.

"That was amazing, Lance!" Hunk spoke over the intercom

"Yes, I agree. It was almost like watching Blaytz train again." Coran added in, Shiro took the scene he had witnessed.

"So then Blaytz's planet style of water quintessence magic technique was similar to Tai Chi. That's pretty cool." Allura and Coran raised an eyebrow

"Tai what? Is that some sort of Earth thing?" Asked the princess

"Yeah, the full name for it is Tai Chi Chuan. It's an internal Chinese martial art which is practiced for both defense training and health benefits. When Keith was younger he went through this phase where he wanted to learn martial arts so I got him a couple books of a few different versions, nothing really stuck though although it looked like you had a talent for Kung Fu." Keith lightly punched his brother figure in the arm as he tried to hide his embarrassment.

* * *

Lance rubbed his elbow and grumbled to himself.

" I can be graceful and cool when doing my water magic but I manage to bang my elbow in the side of the door on the way out, real badass there, Lance." He headed into the medic bay to get some healing spray for his developing bruise when he noticed one of the healing pods wasn't on standby like the others.

"Where's the one Kylee used?" Lance wondered as he grabbed the tablet near by, glad that it had converted to English text when he touched it and pressed in a few keys but his eyes widened when he saw the healing pod that rose up from out of the floor looking torn out and mangled.

"T-this was Kylee's pod...it had to have been his..." He reached out and touched it with a trembling hand then swiftly set down the tablet and ran out of the medic bay, only to bump into someone and fall on his rear end. He looked up to see Shiro extend his hand with sad knowing eyes, Lance felt tears prick his eyes.

"K-Kylee never went back with the other two blade members did he?" Lance's voice shook as he tried to keep it together, to try and not imagine the worst possible reason for the pod being in that state of condition as he took the older paladin's hand.

"Shiro, what happened to him? Tell me." He pleaded and the other sighed softly and went into detail about how the ship was ambushed and about the two blue and pink beings that easily overpowered them and waltz out of the castle like they owned it, Shiro gritted his teeth in frustration but let it go with a sigh.

" Did Blaytz tell you anything about it? Dark Quintessence water magic? How to counter it?" Lance shook his head no softly then ran a hand through his hair in irritation.

"But I don't understand, how did they find us so quickly? We weren't anywhere near any Galra outposts that I can remember." Shiro looked away, feeling a pang of guilt as he looked back at Lance.

"Now, Lance. It's just a theory but Pidge thinks that maybe since the implant you have is Galra Tech, we think that they're tracking our location through your implant." Shiro spoke gently as one would to a small child who thought something was their fault when it clearly wasn't but Lance didn't see it that way and felt the hallway tilt and spin as he heard the blood rushing in his ears.

" _it's your fault that Kylee got taken and is probably being experimented on at this moment, it's your fault that your team almost died at the hands of some weird Galra hybrids. If you had been awake, you could've done something to stop them from taking Kylee but you just laid there and did nothing. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault. __**YOUR FAULT! "**_ Lance felt himself sweat as the voice in his head grew louder and louder, becoming more aggressive until he felt his vision start to darken and Shiro caught him before he hit the floor, hearing the black paladin call out to him although his voice was muffled as the Cuban boy started to lose consciousness.


	10. Chapter 10

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-10 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

( Additional Note: Enkril are what I'm naming those cute rabbit creatures that was on the planet that the green lion was at in season 1)

* * *

Aurora Veil looked down at the arena below, his ears standing at attention to pick up any unfamiliar sounds.

"Lady Haggar, Apologizes for my curiosity but why are you having the Galra half breed be in the training arena? He's clearly aggressively unstable due to the dark quintessence you infected him with. " He asked as he watched Kylee come out in the arena all the while snarling and baring his fangs, his blade suit he wore before was gone and replaced with standard prisoner garb. The yellow sclera had turned black with thick black veins on his skin as well as around his eyes and his slitted pupils turned an eerie glowing neon yellow but he noticed that the teen wasn't spewing any fire until he noticed the metal collar.

"I put him in the training arena, experiment 627, to see if he would be able to able to be properly controlled in this state. The Quintessence magic suppression collar we got off the black market is a safety measure." Aurora Veil's ear turned to the left and turned his head towards the sound a moment after.

"Commander Rigel, good of you to join us." The blue skin teen spoke with a coy grin, Haggar glanced at the Galra Commander as he stepped in.

"What business do you have for being here, Commander?" The under cover blade member glanced at Kylee who destroyed Galra bots with animal aggression regardless of his own well being made the other clench his fists in fury behind his back but kept his voice calm.

" High Priestess, forgive me. I was just curious on how things were coming along with the recent project of yours." She looked at him then turned back to Kylee who didn't even to bother to dodge the sword that had struck him in the side, black blood pour out as he pulled out the sword and tossed it aside but the wound self repaired in seconds and he tore the robot's head clean off its shoulders with a swipe of his claw.

"As you can see, Commander, the project is coming along perfectly. Now leave." Rigel nodded and gave the Galra salute before retreating to his living quarters, grateful for his high status that his room wasn't bugged with spy equipment and pulled out his small tablet and began typing in keys.

Lance woke up in his room once again and headed to the bathroom and washed his face when everything earlier came rushing back to him and he rushed over, falling to his knees and puking up what little he had into the toilet until he started dry heave. Eventually it passed and he stumbled back up to his feet as he wiped his mouth then flushed the toilet. He touched at his implant and felt a tidal wave of negative emotions hit him hard.

" this is all this implant's fault! It's the reason Kylee and my friend's got hurt! " he thought as anger burned but fizzled out as guilt quickly took its place.

"No it's mine...I'm in this situation because of me but...I can fix it..." Lance spoke softly, almost to the point of hysteria as he grabbed a hand towel with shaky hands and stuffed it into his mouth in order to muffle himself and prevent him from biting his own tongue. Lance's socket felt like it was on fire and tears streamed down his face as he gave sobbed and muffled screams of pain but kept pushing forward until he felt something disconnected and he opened his left eye to see the optic implant in his hand which was coated with blood.

"Okay, now what?" He thought as he panted through the pain and his vision started to blur, he felt a rush of coolness press against him and it somewhat soothed the burning sensation as he felt something wet slide down his face, taking the hand towel out of his mouth and against his injury; He felt the rush of coolness again followed by a sound of worry in his head.

"Hey, Blue. Sorry, I worried you...I just had to fix my mistake. Listen, can you tell Red to tell Keith to come get me? I think-I think I'm gonna pass out." Just as his vision started to blur and moments passed as he heard the muffled sound of Keith storming into the room calling his name with panic in voice and tears in his eyes.

" I'm sorry I made you cry, Mullet..." He managed to get out before blacking out. Keith swore as he raked a hand through his hair, biting his bottom lip as panic seized him, holding the blue paladin in his arms.

"Shiro! Allura!" He called out as loud as he could, the stress making him forget that there was an intercom panel by the door. Moments later the two came into the room, along with the others who all looked horror stricken at the sight before them, Hunk puked into a trash can in the corner of the room.

"S-Shiro...what do we do?" Shiro didn't answer his little brother figure as he swallowed and went over to Lance, taking the implant and washing it off.

"Pidge, do you think you and Ryner could make a replacement using this one as an outline?" Pidge nodded through her tears and held out a trembling hand, feeling sick as the implant dropped into her palm, the once glowing blue iris turned black stared up at her and she quickly closed her hand around the Galra Tech.

"I-I'll open a wormhole to Olkarion." Allura added as her shaky legs took her out of the room and tears falling down her face the moment she heard the doors slide shut, leaning against the wall to keep herself from falling to the floor.

Keith paced back and forth, eagerly waiting for Pidge and Ryner to be done so they could put the new replacement implant in Lance and put him in a healing pod when suddenly Allura came over the intercom.

"Paladins, if your able, come to the bridge." Keith glanced at the closed off medic bay and considered staying but eventually decided on leaving and walked towards the bridge. Once he saw Shiro and Hunk standing near by as Allura stood at her podium with Coran typing in a few keys as the static cleared on screen to reveal undercover blade member, Commander Rigel.

"Hello, paladins of Voltron and Princess Allura." Rigel replied, his voice calm but frowned slightly.

"Where are the blue and green paladins? I'm sure they would like to hear the information I have found out." Hunk looked away quickly as tears stung at his eyes.

" they're...busy at the moment. What news do you have for us, Rigel?" Allura replied and Rigel nodded softly.

" I've managed to find Kylee. He's on the ship with Lotor and I. However...the dark quintessence has corrupted him greatly. I'm unsure if he can come back from it..." The Galra's voice was solemn as he pulled a video feed, in the corner of the screen was a small video of Kylee being held in a containment room, pacing back and forth on all fours before finally settling down on the floor near by, the black veins crawled along his skin seeming more thicker around his eyes, where the sclera was pure black and his slitted pupils were glowing yellow wearing the standard galra prison uniform and wearing some sort of high tech collar. Allura placed her hand over her mouth in shock. Keith felt tears prick his eyes but was replaced with a burning rage for the witch, he growled sharply but managed to calm down when he felt Shiro placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Allura, didn't you say your mother taught you how to purify dark quintessence? Couldn't you purify Kylee?" Allura frowned

" I never worked on another person, the dark quintessence on Altea only went after animals and even then they were no bigger then a Onkex. " She looked back up at the screen at Rigel.

"I will do everything I can to heal him. Rigel, are you and Lotor able to get him off the ship? " Rigel thought for a moment then nodded.

"I believe so. We'll meet you at the third moon, Clik, of the planet known as Yoribia. It should be about three Vargas from you location." Keith stepped forward.

"I'll go. Red's the fastest lion. She can cut that time down to one."

" I'm coming with you." added in Shiro who stepped forward and placed a supportive hand on the red paladin's shoulder, Keith glanced at him and smiled softly then the two turned to the screen.

"Very well. We will see you shortly, Red and Black paladin." Rigel then ended the transmission and Keith headed to his room to suit up, casting a glance at the closed medic bay doors.

" hang on, Lance. I'm going to bring back Kylee."

* * *

Lotor growled in aggravation as he grabbed a healing spray from the medical kit in the ship's storage unit, he shook it then sprayed it over his right cheek, the bleeding claw marks hissing at the contact.

"That should heal up soon enough. It wasn't deep enough to scar, thank the stars..." Lotor glanced at the containment pod, Kylee was heavily sedated and appeared to be in a great deal of pain.

"Your lucky you remembered that you can preform air quintessence magic otherwise I'm pretty sure the cub would've took your head clean off." Rigel replied as he started the engine and began entering coordinates. Lotor swallowed, remember the incident that was only a mere few hours ago. The pure aggression, eyes wild and fangs bared, more animal then a civilized galra, the teen dashing after him and pounced with claws ready to tear into him as if he was nothing more then a helpless Enkril. The banished prince shook his head softly and focused on the task at hand.

"Rigel, is everything ready?"

" Of course...my prince." Lotor blushed slightly at the title, the warmth in the others tone and cleared his throat.

"Alright. Well then, let's go then shall we? Before we're delayed any further." Rigel nodded and activated the ship's thrusters, taking off into space.

Keith shifted the left control and pressed his foot on the pedal, he felt heat gently brush against his mind and relaxed slightly as he felt a soft rumble within him while seeing a brief flash of Kylee's face.

"I know, Red. I'm being impatient but I can't help it. Kylee's been gone for a full month and all this time he's been corrupted by dark quintessence, probably stuck inside his own realm all this time." Shiro watched the red paladin from his spot behind the seat as he gripped the head rest for stability.

"He wasn't with us that long and yet you bonded with him so quickly." Keith flinched slightly and moved the controls forward and stepping on the pedal abit more, thrusting Red along.

" I know. But maybe it's because...he's kind of like me? I mean we're both half galra half human and both of us don't know much about our mothers. Plus Red's also gotten of a motherly thing for him. " Shiro mulled this over in his head before speaking.

"Well, don't worry about it too much. I'm sure Allura can heal him." Keith glanced at map laid out in front of him. The third moon, Clik, of the Yoribia planet was coming into view and number four could barely contain his eagerness as he shot off towards the third moon with vigor.

Lance woke up with a groan as his vision cleared, he realized he was in the healing pod yet again and it took him a moment to realize he could see out of his left eye when the glass of the healing pod suddenly dissolved but he managed to catch himself from fall by reaching out and grabbing on to the examination table near by, gasping softly at the scar that went down his right eye, it looked almost as if he didn't have an implant in at all until he noticed the occasional flicker of blue light run through the iris, highlighting the circuit broad patterns in it.

"Lance! Buddy! Your finally up! Oh, man, I was so worried!" Lance tore away from his reflection in the metal of the table to see Hunk coming and braced himself as he was pulled into yet another strong and tight hug, the Cuban boy relaxed when the other loosened his grip and rested his head on the yellow paladin's shoulder.

" I'm sorry I scared all of you. I shouldn't have went about it the way I did. I should've gone to Pidge about making a replacement implant then just...just ripping it out. " He pulled away slightly to look at his best friend better.

"L-Lo siento, Hermano..." Lance swallowed as he felt his throat tighten with emotion as tears stung his eyes but he wiped them away.

"Where's Keith? I should apologize to him too." Hunk perked up at the mention of the raven haired teen.

"Oh! Keith and Shiro went to go get Kylee! That guy we told you about, Commander Rigel,he and Lotor were on the same ship as Kylee so they smuggled him out and in about maybe three hours he should be back with us! Although..." Lance's grin faltered into a look of concern

"Although what?" Hunk looked away for a brief moment then back at the blue paladin.

" Lance, Kylee's infected with dark quintessence and I'm not a hundred percent sure what that means or anything but...he wasn't himself, like at all. The way he moved, the way he looked. To be honest, he reminded me of that Tiger we saw back in third grade when our class went on the field trip to the Zoo." Lance remembered, the memory of the Tiger's fur looking almost golden in the sunlight as it paced impatiently back and forth before finally settle down as the zoo employee tossed in a watermelon and much to the amazement of eight year old Lance and terrified eight year old Hunk, the tiger caught it before it hit the ground before carrying off into his enclosure for privacy.

"Anyway, guess you feel like taking a shower?" The blue paladin nodded and Hunk helped his brother figure along to the shower stalls. Once washed and dressed, Lance looked himself over in the mirror debating whether he should straighten his curls or not. He shrugged and decided not to but did his skin care regime at least while trying to focus entirely on his new eye scar when the intercom came on.

"Everyone, report to the bridge!" Coran stated just as Lance was about to apply his face mask cream.

" I hope this is worth it.." he mumbled and headed out of the showers and to the bridge to see the others standing there, Lance followed their gaze and couldn't help the smile that graced his lips.

"Hey, Mullet! How'd things go? Get lost on the way there?" Keith frowned but saw a spark of humor as if he knew the water guardian was only teasing.

"As if I would, Gills." Lance flinched and blushed at the sudden nickname, reaching up to touch the gill looking quintessence markings on his neck.

"Anyway, sudden flirting aside, Did you guys get Kylee?" Pidge asked, Keith looked away with a soft concerned expression then back at everyone else.

" yeah, Shiro's keeping an eye on him in the cargo hold. He's heavily sedated but he looks terrible...like he's in a lot of pain." Lance felt his chest tighten at the mention of it, he turned his head slightly to the princess.

"Allura...?" His tone was soft, practically pleading and the Altean steeled her nerve.

"I won't give up. I'll figure out someway to heal him." Keith smiled softly and nodded.

" Thanks, we'll be there in about ten ticks or so. See you then." Keith then shut off the connection and went back to fully focus on flying.

Everyone gathered in the hanger with anticipation and soon the red lion was docked then they all made their way to the medic bay with Kylee strapped down to the table in several places.

"Okay, Princess. All set." Her advisor told her to which she nodded with a serious expression as she walked over to the medic table where Kylee was laying.

"Right then. I'm going in. " Hunk raised an eyebrow.

"Going in? Going in where? "

"Into his Quintessence realm, of course. " Shiro stepped forward as did Keith.

" I'm coming with you. They might've not of been here long but Kylee's a part of the team."

"I can't let you guys have all the fun."

" I'm coming too." Added the yellow paladin

"Count me in too." Replied Lance with a small smile.

"It would be interesting to see what his Quintessence realm would look like." Pidge Chimed in. The princess gave small smile but quickly turned serious.

"Alright but everyone has to remain connected to me." She explained. The five paladins nodded then they all held hands as the tallest of the Paladin placed a hand on the princess's shoulder just as her Altean markings glowed and she touched Kylee's forehead.

They felt a rush of cold run through them and when they opened their eyes, each of them was glowing their respective colors. They took in the scenery around them. The sky was thick with black clouds as an wind whipped around sharply, the volcano was silent but still erupted and rather than lava, thick black liquid ran down the sides and into the water, further polluting it. Most of it had already turned into the thick black oily substance.

"Gross, What is this stuff?" asked Hunk as he looked down what they were all standing in, face showing disgust.

"Dark energy quintessence. This must the witch's doing when she struck him last time we had an encounter with her. She's poisoned his quintessence." Allura explained

"We have to focus on finding Kylee." The five nodded in agreement with the red paladin and began looking, calling out his name. Hunk called out several times as he walked around and let out a scream of terror as something shot out of the thick black goo and gripped tightly to his ankle. In a panic, the yellow paladin was about to kick whatever it was off until he took a moment to notice it was a glowing red claw with clumps of the black goo stuck to it.

"Wait, a minute..? Kylee?! Guys, get over here! I found them!" Hunk quickly shouted as he bent down to grab the arm while the other six rushed over and began to help pull. Eventually they managed to pull him out, Kylee sat on the surface looking worn out with a pained expression as he hacked and coughed up some of the goo while the rest of him was practically covered to head and toe in it, Shiro took notice of the black ankle cuffs around the teen's feet which had chains leading down into the black goo.

"How do we fix this? " asked Hunk as he placed a hand on the smaller teen's shoulder, face full of concern when they heard Haggar's laughter echo through out the area. Shiro clenched his teeth, Allura stood up looking around rapidly.

"Show your face, coward!" She shouted, a moment later Haggar stepped out of the shadows.

"Well, it seems the Princess has graced me with her presence and she's even brought her beloved paladins with her." The witch teased, a cold smile on her face.

"Undo what you did to Kylee!" Lance shouted, eyes filled with rage. Shiro let out a roar as he rushed towards her, his robotic arm glowing and always missing her which only caused him to grow more frustrated and grunted as he was forced back by a dark energy pulse, stumbling and skidding along the black goo. His eyes widened as he saw a blur of red go by.

"Keith!" He shouted just as he jumped in the air, Bayard appearing and shifting into his sword and swung wide with the intent to kill only for him to freeze in mid air, the witch's magic holding him there. Haggar threw him across the area with a mere swipe of her hand and Allura quickly caught the red paladin but crashed into Shiro who crashed into Hunk who fell on top of Lance and Pidge. They groaned but stiffened as they felt rumbling underneath them.

"U-um, what's going on?" asked Hunk, feeling anxiety kick in, Pidge shot up.

"The island! It's sinking into the dark quintessence! " she exclaimed, a second later they heard the clink of chains and swiftly looked over to see the black chains behind pulled back into the thick black goo and Kylee desperately try to cling to the surface, despite the exhaustion and pain in his eyes.

"No! Kylee, hang on! I'm coming!" Shiro exclaimed, quickly getting up and dashed over only for his fingers to brush against the tip of the teen's claws before being swallowed up. Shiro merely stared at the spot in shock which quickly turned to rage as he and the others rushed towards Haggar.

Coran jumped slightly in surprise as the five paladins and the princess stumbled back and on to the floor looking exhausted. Allura stood up and walked back over in order to try getting back into Kylee's quintessence realm only to be shocked with dark electrical energy. The princess made a noise of pain and fell back, the older Altean catching her.

"Princess!" Allura huffed in frustration, clenching her teeth.

"That witch put up a barrier! I can't get back in to his quintessence realm!" She racked her brain for answers as she stood up and slowly came to a conclusion.

"Everyone, I need you to leave the room. Please."

"Why? What are you going to do?" Pidge asked as she along with the other paladins got up off the floor. Allura's eyebrows knitted together in a somewhat pained and guilty expression before speaking.

" I'm...I'm going to have to attempt to physically pull the dark quintessence from his body. It's very painful for the person from what i remember mother telling me and she told me she hoped I'd never have to do it myself but here we are...so, please. Leave." She waited and closed her eyes softly when she heard several foot steps and the medic bay doors open then close shut.

"I don't blame them, I don't really want to be here for this either." She thought to herself as she made her way over to Kylee.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Allura flinched and felt as if she'd jumped a foot in the air despite the soft tone from the red paladin. She turned around to see Lance and Keith standing there, determined yet concerned expressions on both of them.

"You...you decided to stay? I mean even Coran left the room." The two looked at each other then at Allura.

"We decided Kylee's spent enough time on his own. We're going to be there for him when he gets out of this. Now, is there anything we can do at all to help?" Lance asked and Allura thought for a moment.

"Keith, when I pull out the dark quintessence, I need you to burn it. Lance, Blaytz taught you some healing techniques, right? Kylee will be extremely sore and worn out from the ordeal. I'm going to need you to take care of him." Red and Blue paladin nodded at their instructions and Allura turned to the dark quintessence inflicted teen, placing one thumb on his forehead and the other thumb over his heart with her altean scales glowing pink as did her eyes and suddenly Kylee's eyes flew open, his eyes an empty black void as he thrashed and struggled against the restraints, snarling and howling while the black veins on his skin slowly started to crawl away. He hacked and coughed as he screamed, black liquid streamed down his face rather then tears as it did from his mouth. Keith and Lance tried to block it or resist urge to beg the princess to stop, knowing it was for the best. Allura then moved back slowly and as she did the black veins lessened and lessened until suddenly a black blob was pulled out through Kylee's very skin, moving and striking out like an angered snake.

" Keith, now!" Allura shouted as she quickly threw the creature to the ground and Keith quickly stepped forward, launching a fist forward and a blow torch stream of fire engulfing the black goo to which it screeched in pain until it silenced, Lance quickly pressed a near by button and a vent opened up sending the ashes out into the black void of space. The three of them panted at the intense situation that had just transpired, after a few moments to catch their breath, Lance turned on the near by skink and moved the water in a graceful manner as it wrapped and covered his hands like gloves then walked over to Kylee and placed his water gloves on the other's chest then his hands glowed and the water seeped into his skin.

Suddenly there was a soft red light and the other galra half breed's markings had changed in appearance slightly, he gave a soft groan as his eyes slowly opened and adjusted to the light taking in the sight of the three people who were over him.

"Guys? W-what happened?" He rasped out, voice raw from screaming. Allura went over to the control panel and undid the cuffs that held him in place.

"You had a rough time getting your quintessence stone but we helped you out." Lance replied softly, helping him up and off the table with Keith on the left side to ease some of the weight off the blue paladin. Kylee smiles softly despite his tired expression.

"Thanks, guys..." Allura smiled softly then looked to Keith and Lance.

"The three of you can have my old room. The bed in there should be able to fit all three of you since I doubt he'll want to wake up alone after such an ordeal. It's three doors down from my current one, ask Coran to take you there." The two teens nodded and went along with both holding on to Kylee, leaving the room and the princess let out a soft sigh, glad for a moment of peace.


	11. Chapter 11

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-11 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

* * *

Haggar growled in frustration as she had been forced out by another realm but calmed herself.

"No matter. I can still control what little left remains inside him. Foolish girl, you should have been more thorough with your quintessence removal." The witch let out a chuckle as she turned and left her room.

Lance stirred awake to the sound of purring, his eyes slowly focused and widened slightly as heat rushed to his cheeks to see Kylee cuddled up against Keith who held him close while the purple skinned teen snuggled his face into the crook of the other's neck. Lance quickly looked away and slowly moved to get up when his ears picked up a second purring sound which made him turn back around to see Kylee's tail laying over Keith's waist.

"K-Keith can purr? Since when? And why is this so cute? Ugh, I can already feel the cavities forming..." Lance whispered to himself but flinched when Keith suddenly stirred and slowly opened his eyes, looking up at Lance.

"Hey, Gills. Sleep okay?" Lance scowled softly at the sudden nickname.

"knock it off with the nickname, mullet." He replied, turning away to hide his blushing face and once it came back to normal, he spoke up again.

"I slept okay, you?" The red paladin smiled softly

"Better then I normally do, actually. " He replied, softening his tone as to not wake Kylee. "I guess having him here helped for some reason. "

"Maybe it's a galra thing." Keith shrugged slightly at Lance's response when Kylee suddenly inhaled deeply before trying to get closer to Keith as if that were even possible then he purred slightly louder as he exhaled, Keith blushed slightly and looked up at Lance.

"Any idea what that was about? "

"I think he likes how you smell, he did something like this with me when he first laid down with me. I think he's abit touch starved since he told me blade members aren't huge on physical affection. " Kylee stirred slightly and slowly opened his eyes, quickly moving away when he noticed that he was clinging to the red paladin.

"S-sorry, I didn't realize I did it. I'm sorry." He managed to get out as heat rushed to his cheeks in embarrassment, Keith looked at him softly.

"Hey, it's cool. If you ever feel like you need a hug, just ask alright? I'll give you one."

" me too, Tiger." Kylee raised any brow at Lance's comment.

"Tiger? I think Dad told me about them once. He said that they're powerful wild cats with orange fur and black strips." Lance nodded

"Thought the nickname suited you cause of the stripes on your cheeks." He replied just when Kylee's eyes widened and his hands rushed towards his neck and felt the metal collar, he began to tug and pull at it when he felt arms wrap around him from behind as Lance reached out to gently take his hands away.

"Lee, it's okay. We're going to get it off soon. We just don't want to mess with it right now cause it might hurt you if we fiddle with it. Ryner and Pidge are doing research on it to figure out the best possible way to take it off without hurting you." The brunette explained gently, Kylee calmed down after hearing this and was lulled back to sleep by Keith's embrace and purrs that vibrated against him. The Red and Blue paladins watched the white haired teen with soft smiles and gentle eyes.

"I...I think maybe I might be falling in love with him." The two thought in unison. Several hours later after Kylee had woken up and the collar taken off him, Allura called everyone to the lounge.

"Alright, since Kylee is back with us and he's still stuck in that horrid prisoner outfit, I suggest we all take a trip to the space mall!" The garrison trio cheered and Coran set a course for the swap moon.

"Your gonna love it, Lee! The mall here is kinda like the one on earth, except with more humans. " Lance talked excitedly, Kylee nodded and listened with his tail swaying lazily side to side. Eventually they made it to the space mall and even managed to convince Coran to allow Allura to come along with them this time. Lance headed straight towards terra, the earth shop they went to last time they had been here, eager to get Kylee out of the ridiculous outfit Coran shoved him in since his prisoner uniform was the only he had at the moment. The half galra teen allowed himself to be pulled along, taking in all the different sights and sounds when he felt a dull headache come on but tried to ignore it.

He sat down on a plush leather couch near by, watching as Lance went through rows of earth clothes while occasionally looking at the item he took off the rack then at Kylee then either put it back on the rack or sling it over his arm with the other articles of clothing. It seemed to be going on forever until just as Kylee was about to drift off, clothing was handed to him and he was fully awake as Lance hoisted him up off the couch and gently pushed him towards the changing room.

"Here, go try these on. " Lance said then sat down on the couch and waited, pulling out his communicator and opened up the messaging function.

**send to: Space Dad, Mullet, Pidgey, Hermano Hunk and Space Sister**

**Lance: guys, lets all meet at the food court. I'm getting Kylee some proper clothes**

**Space Sister: that's wonderful, Lance. I just bought myself a necklace, it's so sparkly! Do you think Kylee would want something? Maybe a bracelet?**

**Pidgey: knowing you, I bet he's gonna come to the food court wearing something bright and flashy.** **Lol**

**Lance: Hey! I'm great at clothes shopping! :p**

**Space Dad: Should we have a meet up time?**

Lance looked at a clock near by and quickly began typing again.

**Lance: it's like noontime. Let's head to Vrepit Sal's for lunch in like two ticks.**

**Hermano Hunk: alright! can't wait to see how Sal's been doing. Hopefully he's been keeping up with** **what I taught him.**

**Mullet: Hey does anybody know when Kylee's birthday is? I'm trying to find his birthday stone so I can put it in this awesome knife I just bought him.**

**Lance: of course you'd give a knife as a gift, Mullet. Hang on, I'll ask him.**

"Hey, Lee, do you know when your-" Lance looked up from his device when he heard the curtain open and was stunned at the sight before him. The galra half breed wore black jeans and a white sleeve less shirt with a red and white satin bomber jacket with snarling white tiger heads embroidered either side on the front along with black high top sneakers.

"So? Does it look okay?" Lance felt himself blush and quickly turned away.

"Yeah, looks great! G-glad you got me here to show you how to dress, huh Lee?" He glanced at the still open communication link, a ping when off.

**Pidgey: well? When is it? I'm curious too.**

Lance managed to calm himself down and turned back to the half galra teen. "So, when's your birthday? Mullet's trying to find your birthstone."

"Oh, my dad said on earth it was February 14th when I was born." Lance nodded and typed it in then slipped it back in his pocket and grabbed his wallet.

"Eh, all I got is a few hundred GAC. " he mumbled to himself then shoved his wallet back into his pocket then frowned softly.

"Hey, Where's your tail?" Kylee lifted up his shift to reveal it loosely wrapped around his stomach but it wasn't the white haired teen's well defined four pack that caused the brunette to gasp sharply, it was faded black lightning pattern in the center.

"T-this must be the side effect of taking out the dark quintessence physically from his body..." Lance thought as he blinked a few times and slowly stood up, heading towards the check out area.

"I'll make modifications to the pants for your tail later. Come on, Lee. Let's go meet up with the others." The teen put down his shirt and followed after the other. While waiting in line, Lance noticed black heart shaped fingerless gloves and grinned slightly then handed them to Kylee.

"Here. I'll buy you these. Now you and Mullet can kinda match. The heart holes are perfect too cause on earth, your birthday is also on a holiday called Valentine's Day." Kylee took them and looked them over then slipped them on, flexing his hands abit and grinned as his tail wagged.

"Glad you like them, Tiger." He snickered then paid for Kylee's outfit and the two headed out, taking the escalator to the food court.

The group ate at Vrepit Sal's while Kylee was handed a small bag from Allura and a box from Keith, Kylee dug into the bag and pulled out a red sequin scrunchie as well as red heart shaped sunglasses.

"Thanks, Allura. I really like it." Kylee said as he tied his hair up into a ponytail with the scrunchie.

" your welcome and look we match. " she replied with a smile as she showed her own pink sequin scrunchie and pink heart shaped sunglasses. Kylee grinned but flinched suddenly as a sharp pain ran through his head,his ears tilting down slightly. Shiro frowned as he finished the last of his food.

"You alright, Kylee?" He slowly relaxed his face and opened his eyes.

"Y-yeah, I'm alright. I'm just not used too all this noise, I guess. "

"Then it's head back to the Castle so you can clear your head." Allura replied and shortly after they all got back on castle where Kylee opened Keith's gift which was a silver knife with a oval cut amethyst connecting the blade and hilt together.

"I know you lost your dad's blade knife and I know this can't replace it but I thought you should at least have something other then your quintessence magic. It even has a battle mode, press your thumb on the gem to activate it." Kylee did as instructed by Keith and the amethyst started to glow brighter and brighter until both had to look away. When the light faded, Kylee gasped softly at the silver katana sword with an amethyst gem in the handle.

"It's amazing, Keith! I love it! Thank you so much!" His tail wagged hard and he hugged the other teen, placing a kiss on his cheek but froze as he realized what he'd just done. The two boys blushed bright red and avoided eye contact with one another as Kylee pulled away and headed towards the doors to leave the training room.

"Uh, thanks again. For um, for the knife sword. It's really great."

"Y-you're welcome." Kylee nearly bumped into Shiro as he sped walked out of the training room,heading straight for his room. Once he put the sword into knife mode he placed it on the shelf nearby and hung his jacket in the closet then threw himself on to his bed with a content sigh as he fell asleep.

* * *

The next day, Kylee and Keith were sparing with one another with no real focus, just having fun and joking around. Lance leaned against the wall, watching them as he lazily moved an orb of water between his hands.

"Bet I could pin you, Ky. "Kylee snickered as he dodged Keith's fist.

"I doubt it. Remember, I've went through my blade training since I was thirteen." The white haired teen's voice was abit arrogant and Keith grinned widely at the challenge, suddenly launching himself at Kylee who fell on to his back but used his legs to push Keith over him while still holding on to the other which landed Kylee on top of him. Keith panted heavily as the other half galra teen still held clawfuls of his black shirt.

"Pinned you." He said with a smirk and glint of mischief in his eyes. Keith blushed but scowled slightly.

"Okay, Okay. Now let me up." Kylee got off with a coy grin, walking away as his hips swayed with confidence and tail swaying about lazily. Keith waited for a few moments then launched himself and Kylee's back, the two laughed and swore at each other in good natured manner, a mess of limbs until Keith found himself again on his back with other strangling his hips and his shirt tightly gripped in his claws.

"Pinned you again." Lance watched the scene played out, being reminded of that one scene he saw in a Disney movie but couldn't remember the name when Kylee suddenly flinched again and held the right side of his head with one hand while keeping a hold on to Keith's shirt with other.

"Kylee?" Keith asked in concern while looking up at him, Lance quickly came over while still keeping a mental grip on his water. It moved in his hand in a circular motion like a fish in a pond.

"Head..ache.." the teen managed to get out. Lance frowned and split the water into two, slipping it over his hands like gloves then breathed out as he focused. The water glowed and he placed his hands on Kylee's temples, the pained expression left his face. The red and blue paladin looked at each other in concern, eventually Kylee went to bed and Keith went to talk to Coran about it who merely brushed it off as dehydration after the work out he and Keith had earlier. He scowled and the older altean's dismissal, pulling out his communication device before letting out a sigh and gently tossing it on to the small dresser table by his bed before going to bed himself after seeing his clock read three in the morning.

Kylee was sitting on a carpeted floor, his tiny hands trying to put in the circle into square hole until the sound of piano keys and his mother's gentle voice trickled into the room which was shortly followed by his father.

"Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf" she sang

"Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf" his father sang in return, tripping over a key or two. He heard his mother laugh.

"Good, mon amour. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf (Un, deux, trios, quatre, six, sept, huit, neuf)" the two sang and played in unison, laughing with one another.

"Sept-huit-neuf (sept-huit-neuf)"

"Sept-huit-neuf (sept-huit-neuf)"

" One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,nine..." the two ended in unison, laughing and a sense of happiness filled the room until suddenly Kylee felt himself fall and he found himself being given his father's blade at the age of thirteen by Kolivan.

" I'm sorry, young cub. Nalu was a skilled warrior. I will give you three days time of grievance then your training begins." He replied as he placed a hand on top of the young child's shoulder then left shortly after and Kylee merely stared at his father's blade as tears clouded his vision and when he blinked them away, his friends were dead and bleeding around him as their dull glassy eyes stared up at nothing, black smoke and fire surrounded the area as the lions laid there, the yellow glow gone from their eyes. Kylee stepped back, trembling until he bumped into something. He turned around to see the Red lion and pleaded with her to wake up, to give him any response and he pounded on her front claw but then froze when he saw dark crimson liquid on his claws and finally noticed the entire front of him was covered it, trembling he sniffed it to find the copper smell he was dreading and opened his mouth to scream.

Kylee woke up with a gasp as he jolted awake, his permanently purple skin was drenched with sweat, his bedding was slightly burned and riddled with claw marks. He trembled and hugged his knees, wishing Ulaz or Thace were still alive, the two elder galra had become something of father figures to him but that's what happens when you become a blade, gaining information is above your own life and Kylee hated it but it was how he was raised so what could he do? Besides, breaking apart Zarkon's empire was far more important than his emotional wellbeing and so long as he physically capable of fighting he would be useful to the blades and Voltron. So he wiped the tears from his sweaty face and stuffed his emotions in a bottle that laid among the thousands of others in his head and got up to use the shower then once dried he dressed in his white tank top and black pants then headed out to training room.

"Start training session. Level five." He spoke out loud and floating orbs came out of the ceiling and began a barrage of blasts.

Kylee panted heavily as he got back into another fighting stance, sweat dripped down his face and back.

" Level nineteen shall begin shortly. Confirm or deny?" Asked a robotic voice.

"Confirm" He called out, moments later, a couple of altean bots came rising out of the floor and took battle stances as well, carrying battle axes and swords as well as guns. He gasped sharply as his head started to throb and ache as if it were in a vice. Then the room suddenly seemed to change, the lighting in the walls turned purple and stood before him were galra sentry bots and he was standing in some sorta of empty arena, He looked up slightly to see Haggar watching him from above with a wicked grin on her face with those horrible forever glowing yellow eyes. He began to tremble as tears formed in his eyes.

Shiro stirred awake, getting up from bed and heading to the kitchen to grab a water pouch when he noticed the light in the training room was on and headed inside to see who could be training at 6 am, it couldn't be Keith since he normally didn't start training for another hour. He gasped sharply when he walked in to see Kylee suddenly bare his fangs at the altean training bots and rushed towards them at such a speed that he vanished, only way to tell he was in the room was the bots that looked like they were being melted and ripped apart on their own by some invisible force and Shiro felt as if he'd stepped into an oven with how hot it quickly got. He heard cracking and looked up to see that it was actually coming from the thick glass window of the observation room from above. Suddenly Kylee appeared among the damage, panting, small jets of fire leaving his mouth as smoke came off his slightly burned shirt while he still trembled.

"K-Kylee?" He tensed when the teen abruptly turned around and the eldest of the paladins braced himself as Kylee rushed towards him with his fangs bared as he snarled. Shiro grunted as he hit the floor and threw up his altean robotic arm just in time to catch Kylee's fangs before he went for the other's throat.

The teen gave a muffled snarl, his fangs dug into the metal and Shiro's eyes widened slightly as the metal actually started to dent and crack. Kylee's slitted pupils were mere lines, his red eyes wild.

"Kylee...Stop, it's okay. You're...you're not there anymore. Your in the castle of lions with your friends, okay? Your safe. nothing is going to hurt you while your here in the castle. Breathe and focus on my voice, okay? Just breathe. " Kylee seemed to struggle but began to calm and focus, doing as the elder man instructed.

" good. Your doing great." He reassured gently as Kylee's slitted pupils returned to their original girth and he slowly let go of his hold on Shiro's arm.

"Awesome, buddy. Keep breathing and focusing on my voice. Breathe in for four seconds." Kylee took in a shaky breath and Shiro smiled softly. "Now hold for seven seconds." Once the seconds were up Shiro spoke up again.

"Now breathe out for eight seconds. Good, keep it up, Kylee." Eventually the white haired teen was completely calm but quickly tears formed as he started to cry and apologize, Shiro quickly sat up and hugged the teen.

"Hey, it's okay. I know you didn't mean it. It's okay, Kylee." Shiro spoke in a gentle tone and rubbed small circles on the other's back which him slowly calm back down and fall asleep.

"End training session." Shiro called out and the room powered down then he picked up Kylee and took him out of the room.

Allura frowned as she the turned off her the tablet that was hooked up the security cameras, having watched the entire thing happen.

"He went from level five all the way to level nineteen in only three vargas..." Allura felt conflicted on what to do. On one hand, Kylee helped out and put his life at risk at times for Lance as well as protect Coran and Allura from Haggar but only the other...

"He's attacked Lance and now Shiro due to these episodes he's been having...what if he does this on a mission? Or during a coalition event?" the mice squeaked at her and made gestures, Allura smiled softly.

"Yes, I suppose a few quintants on the Sondara planet would give everyone a chance to officially relax rather then just a trip to the space mall. But I want it to be a surprise so I'll put them through intense training this morning." The mice gave thumbs up and Allura smiled softly then got ready for the day.

Lance jolted awake, nearly falling out of bed as Allura spoke over the intercom.

"Paladins! Report for training!"He quickly got up and stumbled into the bathroom, washing off his overnight face mask and brushed his teeth then towards his paladin suit, quickly taking off his sleep wear into his gear then out his bedroom door.

Kylee jolted awake to realize he was in his room but his ruined bedding had been changed, he was confused at first but remembered falling asleep in Shiro's arms.

"He must've seen them and changed them for me." He thought as he changed into an extra white tank top and slipped on his shoes then brushed his teeth before heading out the door and to the training room.

* * *

Lance groaned, feeling sore from the intense work out and frowned when he remembered Allura asked Kylee to observe him and the other Paladins with herself and Coran in the observation deck rather than join them.

"I wonder why..." he mumbled to himself as Hunk helped him up off the floor and they caught up with the others.

"Why what?" asked Hunk as they all went to the kitchen and hung around drinking water pouches while snacking on food goo cookies.

"Well, just...don't you guys think it's weird that Allura didn't want Kylee to train with us? Like I know she didn't say those words exactly but I kinda got that vibe from her you know?" The blue paladin replied as he shoved a cookie into his mouth and chewed.

"Kylee did say he's been training since he was thirteen so he'd probably kick our butts if we went up against him seriously." Keith said as he downed a water pouch and grabbed another one from the fridge.

"I don't think that's it, guys..." Shiro added in as he set his water pouch on the kitchen island. Pidge raised an eyebrow as she swallowed down her cookie and took a few sips of her pouch.

" what do you mean?" Hunk asked, concern in his tone as Shiro sighed softly.

"Last night, well, I guess technically early this morning I got up to get a drink and I saw the training room light on. I went in thinking it was Keith but it was actually Kylee. I think he was having a PTSD attack, he destroyed the training bots so easily and moved so fast I couldn't even see him. It was as if the robots were just been broken and melted by nothing, it was so hot in there that the glass from the observation deck window actually cracked then I tried to call out to him he rushed towards me, maybe thinking I was the enemy..." Shiro turned his altean arm over, revealing the slightly damaged metal on the inside of the arm. The other Paladins gasped softly.

"Shiro, you can't possibly think that Kylee did this on purpose did you?"

"Of course not, Keith. I..I understand what it's like to have a war inside your own head but Allura doesn't. She must've kept him away from us while we were training because she might've thought he'd go after one of us again." Keith scowled and crossed his arms.

"Everyone, please report to the main bridge." Coran spoke over the intercom, Lance groaned in exhaustion.

"What now?" He spoke out loud with annoyance in his tone as he and the others made their way to the main bridge with Kylee, Coran and Allura already there. Lance frowned softly when he saw Kylee hugging his knees, appearing to try and make himself less noticeable as possible. He stepped forward just as Keith did, the two locked eyes for a brief moment before smiling at one another then continued walking towards Kylee, making a spot next to him on either side.

"So what's up?" Asked Pidge

"Oh, right. Well, I've decided a break is what we all need, so I'm directing the castle to the planet known as Sondara." replied the princess as she began to active a wormhole.

"Okay, what's at Sondara?" Kylee asked, his body relaxing slightly just by the red and blue paladins being near him as well as feeling a gentle warmth curl up against him and a purr in his head.

"Glad you asked, Number 3.2. Sondara is-" Coran was cut off by Kylee asking another question.

"Wait, 3.2? but I'm not a paladin"

"It's this nickname thing that Coran made up based on our height. See, Shiro is the tallest out of all of us. While I'm the 3rd and your abit shorter than me, so welcome to the team, 3.2." Lance explained and gave the half breed a pat on the back, who was trying to will his tail into stop wagging.

"Yes, well, as I was saying...Sondara is a tourist destination. Golden sand, light blue water, tons of shops and food stands. The Princess and I thought it'd be nice for all of us to spend a few days here to rest and relax after all that's been going on."

"Alright, a space beach! Let's go, guys!" Lance exclaimed excitedly. Moments later, the ship passed through the wormhole and landed on the planet soon after.

Lance eagerly got out once he was dressed in his blue swim trunks. Pidge and Hunk ate food from a stand near by while watching the Cuban boy splash around like a toddler, a little while later Keith came out in his red trunks and sure Lance had seen him in them but they never hugged the red paladin's butt that well before.

"They must've shrunk since the last time he wore them...man, I hope he doesn't get a new pair." He thought as he felt his face heat up and he pulled his eyes away from the other boy's rear end.

Meanwhile, Kylee was standing in his room while looking in the mirror at his newly bought white swim trunks with his red terrycloth sleeveless hoodie hanging on the wall near by. He stared solemnly at the faded black lightning marks in the center of his four pack then with a heavy sigh he grabbed his hoodie and slipped it on, hiding his mark and stepped outside into the sunshine, tying up his hair into a high ponytail with the red sequin scrunchie and pulling out his red heart shaped sunglasses from his swim trunks pocket, putting them on as he made his way down the beach, feeling eyes on him as he sat down on the towel with Hunk and Pidge, he flinching slightly when he noticed them also seem to stare as well.

"What?"

"Dude, you look like you came off the cover of a alien summer fashion magazine." Hunk replied, Pidge pointed to Keith and Lance with a coy grin on her face.

"Oh, man, I think you fried their brains" Kylee glanced over at the two were blushing bright red with wide eyes, they flinched and make back to reality when Shiro used his air quintessence magic to push a wave to build up more water which rose over and soaked the two.

"Oh, your in for it now. Forget I'm the guardian of water, Shiro?!" Lance called out with a grin as he made a wave quickly grow in size as he push and pulled at it until it was large enough to go over Shiro's head then let go, sending the black paladin under. He quickly popped up and spit out water but went after the lanky teen and the two them play fought with Keith ending up joining in.

Everyone spent the afternoon eating and hanging out underneath the big umbrella when Lance came up with an idea.

"Hey, we should have a sand castle building contest." He suggested as he took a bite out of the local barbecued meat.

"Sounds like fun. Good idea, Lance." Allura replied "we'll try to replicate the castle."

"Okay but that's the prize for winning?" Asked Keith as he drank a water pouch

"Uhh, person gets to choose the next activity?" Lance offered, everyone came to an agreement.

"I'll get the judge. You all have twenty Doboshs." He pulled out his pocket timer from his brightly colored shirt. "Begin!"

Moments passed and everyone's came out more or less okay, Kylee came in second place while Hunk came in first. Lance scowled at the yellow paladin's perfect sand replica.

"Hermano! You didn't use your quintessence magic to cheat did you?" Lance asked the other who started to laugh nervously and wouldn't look him in the eye.

"Pffft, What? Me? No, course not. No way." Lance swiftly turned to Coran.

"Coran, I demand a rematch. Hunk clearly used to his quintessence magic to cheat." Coran looked over Hunk's castle replica and nodded softly.

"Well, sand is a subset of earth after all. Alright, I'll allow a rematch. No quintessence magic this time though...and go!" He said as he started the timer again and everyone got to work.

Kylee won this time and suggested the activity of looking for seashells. Everyone thought the idea sounded fun so they grabbed buckets from the castle and started looking until the sun set and the moon rose high, the group stayed on the beach while most others left, Kylee made a fire and everyone took turns telling stories after awhile they all got tired so Lance put out the fire then they all headed to bed.


	12. Chapter 12

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-12 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

* * *

Kylee walked around dunes of black sand in his old blade of Marmora suit, confusion on his face.

"Okay, so...since I'm not glowing red and I have my old uniform back that must mean that this just a dream." He to himself as he walked around, flinching when he stepped in something wet and looked down to see a puddle of bright metallic red liquid and felt a shiver run down his spine, panicking slightly as hands reached out as they bursted from the black sand and began to pull the teen under. The sand was beginning to suffocate him and just as he was about to pass out he fell through and landed in a pond filled with the same bright metallic red liquid from before and gasping for air they reached the top and managed to climbed out, dripping with the stuff until it finally clicked as he saw the corpses of the galra grunt soldiers scattered about among the black sand, staring up at the black void as they spoke despite they're mouths not moving.

"Please! I won't tell anyone I saw you!"

"Have mercy, I beg of you!"

"No! D-Don't kill me! I-i don't want to die!"

Kylee covered his ears and tried to block out the voices but they only got louder and louder.

"Shut up!" He snarled out and an inferno flew from his mouth, the corpses catching

fire and the teen trembled as he heard their screams of pain despite the bodies remaining motionless, he shut his eyes tight and when he opened them he was in Haggar's experimentation room once again, strapped to the table. He looked around wildly and his eyes landed on various tools of equipment when Haggar came in and looked down at him.

"I knew you'd be back little half breed. Fear not, I'll make you into something the empire shall take great pride in." He shivered as her hand ran through his hair and felt tears prick his eyes as he suddenly heard muffled voices and felt as if someone was jostling him despite seeing no hands and then everything faded away.

Kylee woke up with a sharp gasp, panting heavily and shoved away the hands on his skin, flames left his mouth as he looked around wildly and flinched when he heard the red and blue paladin.

"Ky...it's okay. Your here with me and Lance." Keith gently grabbed the teen's hand which was trembling, he swallowed.

"H...How do I know this isn't another dream?" Lance wrapped his arms around the other boy and held him tight

"Feel any better?" Lance asked as he pulled away for the moment and Kylee nodded slightly, purring softly with his tail swaying slowly. Keith and Lance blushed at the sight but kept focus on the situation.

"So what was your dream about?"Keith asked softly, Kylee gave out a shaky sigh and explained his dream to the two boys, about during his earlier missions as a blade if he ever got caught by a galra soldier he had no choice but to kill them. He did what was required to succeed, even if the enemy begged for their life. The two frowned but gently told him it was just a dream and managed to get him back to sleep, Lance and Keith held Kylee close in between the two of them.

The next morning, Lance woke up half asleep by the growling in his stomach but tried to ignore it in favor of cuddling with the two half galra boys until the gnawing hunger became too much and the teen was forced fully awake with a slight pout. He sat up and rubbed his eyes as light filter through the curtains, he glanced over at the two of them and was stunned by the beauty of them. Kylee and Keith snuggled together, both purring in unison as the early morning light made Kylee's white hair practically glow, making him look like a divine being and Keith's jet black hair looked so shiny and soft as if it were made of silk.

"Holy Quiznak...I think I really am i love with the two of them...is that okay? Is it alright to love to guys at once? Wait, does this make me a furry since they're both part galra?!" Lance thought as he got out of bed with his mind running a mile a minute as he washed his face then brushed his teeth. He sighed after washing out his mouth, poking his head out of the bathroom to see that Kylee had buried his face in the crook of Keith's neck and smiled softly to himself then went back to his morning routine.

* * *

After everyone woke up and had breakfast, they all went back down to the beach. Kylee stayed under the beach umbrella with Pidge while they both played cards, Lance was on a volleyball team with Hunk and Coran versing Allura, Shiro and Keith. Allura's team ended up winning and Lance demanded a different game.

" I'll take on anything, Lance. Name the game." Allura replied with a smirk, the Cuban boy tapped his foot in thought.

"Okay then how about we play chicken fight?" Allura raised an eyebrow

"What's that?"

"It's this really fun game on earth, The object of the game is to knock down or separate an opposing team through team effort. The person on top is considered to be the attacker while the person below is considered to be the vehicle. The attacker may use any means possible in order to knock the other opponent's attacker off." Pidge explained then scowled as she lost another card game to Kylee who smirked in triumph.

" Okay, Lance. I'll play your Chicken Fight." The two shook hands with confident grins. It was Lance and Keith verses Allura and Shiro while the others either sunbathed or doing something else more relaxing. When Kylee's caught something sparkly and looked over to see a jewelry stand that had a necklace with an oval shaped glittery blue gem that reminded the seventeen year old so much of a certain someone's blue eyes and a bracelet with ruby as red as a certain hot head's eyes. Pidge watched the teen's slitted pupils dilate slightly as he kept his eyes on the necklace and bracelet.

"Jeez, you really are like a cat. Just go buy the dang things if you want them that badly." She said with a chuckle as she flipped through her science magazine. Kylee mumbled he'd be right back and went off to the jewelry stand, not really paying attention to his surroundings as he walked.

"Hi, I'd like to buy that necklace and bracelet please." He said as he found himself standing in front of the stand, the four armed green skinned humanoid glanced at him then gave a small grin.

"I know that look. A kid in love should get a discount. For you? Only 400 GAC." Kylee frowned softly at the high price, but handed over the money and grinned when the jewelry was placed into a bag then handed over to him. He turned around to head back to the beach only to realize he had no idea how to get back and he couldn't scent any of the paladins or the princess out cause there were too many smells to go through.

"Quiznak..." He mumbled to himself as his ears tilted down slightly. He became walking through the crowded market shops and food vendors, looking around for any patch of sand on the ground to indicate he was close to the beach when he flinched and panicked when he felt someone pull him into an alleyway, whisps of fire started to slither out of his mouth but before he could fully defend, a metal muzzle was strapped over his mouth. He managed to get a few hits in and took out what looked like three anthropomorphic lizards until he felt a sharp pain in his side as if he had just been injected with something then everything went dark as felt something clap around his neck.

He eventually woke up, dressed in fine red silk shorts and matching top. He wore golden ankle and wrist bracelets decorated with jewelry to find that he still had the muzzle on and chained up inside a thick glass display box with gold bejeweled lining, looking around they saw a few other beings in a similar situation as him, he felt something around his neck to feel he was wear another one of those quiznaking Rentarian Quintessence Suppression Collars but it had apparently been decorated with jewels. He couldn't do much but just sit there, feeling so worn out, so very tired that even moving felt like too much energy.

Pidge frowned as she finished her magazine.

"It shouldn't take someone this long to buy a necklace and a bracelet."

"He's probably just haggling with the shop owner." Hunk reassured her as he took a bite of his food. Pidge frowned but nodded and went to go look for sea shells with Lance.

"Hey, Pidge. Where's Kylee?" asked Lance as he was scanning the sandy shoreline.

" he went to go get you and Keith a gift but...he's been gone for quite awhile." Lance frowned and tried to put a hold on his panic that was trying to wriggle free.

"How long is a while, Pidge?"

"Eh, maybe fifteen Doboshs? " the taller teen relaxed slightly.

"Oh, that's not that bad. He's probably just trying to pick out the best gift." Pidge nodded softly and the two returned to looking for sea shells.

Suddenly the room, which wasn't a room as it barely gave Kylee room to stand up, shifted and rise up until Kylee looked around to see creatures of different races and planets all sat down and were holding signs with numbers on them. Then stepping out from behind the curtain was a sharply dressed anthropomorphic male lizard with dark blue scales and sharp green eyes.

"Okay, so, this a rare find for us. A Galra half breed with fire quintessence magic markings permanently on his skin. Any questions before we begin the bidding?" Kylee felt as if they had been tossed into a pool of ice water, frantically they tried to use their fire or even lava but no matter how hard they tried nothing happened.

"Can they perform fire magic while in that holding unit?" Asked a male humanoid that eight arms and orange skin.

"No, not to worry, everyone. You're all safe, this Rentarian Quintessence suppression collar that's taken off by your voice, if they try to remove it by pulling they get a minor shock for such bad behavior. I'd also like to mention that the ankle and wrist bracelets also have suppression capabilities to where it'd be an effort for them to even move. Now let's start the bidding. Starting at two hundred GAC, do I hear two hundred and fifty?" Kylee felt a wave of nausea move over them as they began to zone out, the sounds of voices being muffled. He flinched as a gavel suddenly slammed down.

"Sold! To the one in the hooded cloak for thirty thousand GAC!" Kylee began to panic as the back wall of the room opened up and clawed at the hands that grabbed at him, easily taking him out then as the other beings left, save for the person in a hooded cloak.

"Payment, sir?" The humanoid lizard took the payment he was handed and shoved the half breed towards the cloaked figure and Kylee felt the terrified panic kick in as he was being taken away.

"Keith...Lance...a-anyone, please help!" He thought as he was tugged along and eventually found himself in a lavish hotel room and was tossed on to the bed. The hooded figure removed their cloak and the half breed felt a chill run down their spin as their eyes widened.

"C-Commander Sendak...?"

Lance and Keith as well as the others began to search frantically, asking anyone if they had seen a galra teen with a tail and white hair, they all said no. It had been nearly four hours since Kylee went to go get the two paladins their gifts. Red pressed against Keith's conscious, making a noise of worry which only frustrated him more.

"Red, is there anyway you can help out at all?" Suddenly Keith felt a roar within him and a surge of power move through his body and a slight stinging sensation in his eyes. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes until he saw a thin glowing red thread and quickly chased after it, coming to a stop when it suddenly ended at an alleyway with a bag. He opened it to see inside a oval cut sapphire necklace with a silver chain and a gold bracelet with an emerald cut ruby. The raven haired teen gritted his teeth as he held the items close to his chest and headed back towards the castle as the sun started to set.

Kylee flinched as the galra commander grabbed his face, wincing as the metal from the muzzle dug into the bridge of his nose, cutting into the skin as he weakly clawed at Sendak's arm and his claws lightly scratched at the metal plating of the armor.

"I should rid myself of you after what you did to my ship and my crew. Not only was it an insult to have someone as pathetic looking as you be the one to do so but then you have nerve to come back in order to rescue the blue paladin and leave as if you owned the quiznaking place but I suppose your more useful alive rather then dead. I could use you as a ransom perhaps against Voltron. " Sendak gave a wicked grin as he let go of Kylee's face, now bleeding from the muzzle. He then pulled back his fist punched in the white haired teen in the face and everything went dark.

Keith and Lance couldn't sleep at all, the bed felt empty without Kylee in it. The Cuban clutched the sapphire that dangled around tightly as tears pricked his eyes, Keith rubbed the ruby, fueled by angry at whoever had Kylee and was keeping him away from them, thinking of going out to keep looking despite it being well past midnight. When suddenly an alarm notification went off and the two quickly ran to the bridge, everyone else already there looking no better then they were.

"In coming message from a Galra battle cruiser."

"Put them through, Coran." replied The Princess. Moments later a screen appeared and showed up was the Commander.

"Sendak..." Shiro spoke coldly, glaring at the screen.

"Hello, Paladins. I have someone who wishes to greet you." He replied, the camera panned over to Kylee who was still wearing the muzzle and wearing the skimpy outfit although tattered and dirty due to the rough treatment, the wound he received from the muzzle had stopped bleeding and had crusted. Everyone gasped, Lance and Keith glared as Sendak came back on screen.

"Let him go!" Lance yelled, Sendak glared at the boy.

"You are not in position to make demands, paladin. Remember that. Now, hand over the lions of Voltron in eight vargas or..." Sendak grinned as Kylee's muffled screams were heard off to the side as the connection was cut.

Keith felt a rage boil within him as he felt Red growl against his head, feeling her fury curl up against his own.

He felt himself relax only slightly when he felt an arm rest on his shoulder.

"Keith, it's okay. We're going to get them back." The soft tone from the black paladin snuffed out some of the fire within him and he exhaled.

"Right, okay...so what's the plan?"

* * *

Kylee panted heavily, trembling from the pain he received from the galra empire symbol branded on to his skin.

"Interesting...normally, your fire/lava quintessence magic protects you from fire and lava, however without it at your disposal..." Kylee gave a muffled scream of pain as the branding iron went back over the fresh wound.

"Your able to be burned like anyone else..." finished the galra solider, pulling the branding iron away and twirling it lazily however he stopped and saluted when Sendak came into the room and stepped towards the half breed.

"Remember this, you are weapon. A tool for the empire,nothing more." He growled as he roughly grabbed Kylee's face, the muzzle digging in and reopening the wound, blood slid down the muzzle and dripped on to the floor. After a few moments, the galra commander let go and watched as the teen half breed collapsed to the floor.

"Place him in one of the holding cells."

"Yes, sir."

Shiro and Keith flew Black and Red towards the battle cruiser.

"Okay, so here's the plan. We'll pretend to surrender then Allura will slip out from of the barrier with Keith and find some Galra armor then Allura will disguise herself as a Galra Soldier and we'll pretend she apprehended us then we'll most likely be taken to the holding cells where the three of us will search for Kylee." The black paladin explained

"Right." Allura and Keith replied in unison.

Keith glanced around the cells, frowning at the closed slots on the doors. The clink of his and Shiro's cuffs filled in the silence, Allura glanced down the hall.

"Okay, Keith, quickly. See through the Red Lion's eyes and locate Kylee." The red paladin nodded and after a few moments his pupils glowed red and he followed the thin red string until he ended up at the last door on the very end and pulled open the slot, eyes widening at the sight of other galra human hybrid teen and quickly pressed his hand against the scanner panel, the door opened a few moments later.

Kylee sat there, the brand mark stood out on his skin and the muzzle was filthy with dried blood. The red paladin quickly but quietly came over and undid the muzzle, tears pricked at his eyes as he reached for the collar around his neck and was surprised when he wasn't electrocuted but Kylee however was abruptly woke from his unconsciousness as several jolts of electricity ran through him. Keith swore and blinked through the tears as Kylee twitched and thrashed but eventually stopped. Shiro came in shortly after, quiet but expression grim as he used his altean robot arm to cut through the chains and made a go for the collar but frowned when the tech merely heated up rather than slice in two, but pushed that aside for right now and picked the teen up off the floor when suddenly alarms blared.

"Quiznak! Guys, it's time to go!" The two quickly left the room and followed Allura, no longer with purple skin as they booked it towards the lions, dodging laser blasts until Keith tumbled forward after being hit in the back, luckily only the jet pack on his suit was damaged.

"Keith!" Shiro shouted with desperation as he looked back, his eyes widened when Kylee suddenly leapt from his arms despite his injuries and quintessence magic as well as his strength being blocked to come to his red paladin's defense, his reaction time wasn't the best and retained several more injuries but managed to kill the guards that followed them. He struggled but helped Keith up who ended up supporting him anyway, Kylee gave a weak purr in gratitude before passing out and the three of them eventually made it back to their lions and to the castle, without wasting a moment more as soon as both lions were in the hanger Allura flipped on the com link.

"Coran, open a worm hole, quickly!"

"Yes, right away, Princess!"

Once they were sure that they were safe, all three relaxed for a brief moment. Allura glanced over at Kylee who clung tightly to Keith despite the variety of injuries and being unconscious. She reached out towards him only to have her hand smacked away and for a brief moment she felt a twinge of fear as the whites of Keith's eyes had turned that same galra yellow and his canines got abit sharper.

"Keith, it's okay...Kylee is going to be okay. " Shiro spoke in a soft tone and the boy slowly calmed down and looked away, blinking away tears.

"I-I'm sorry, Allura..."

"It's alright...Now, come on. We need to try and get that collar and those bracelets off of him." Keith nodded in agreement as did Shiro.

Despite not wanting the others to see, they brought Kylee to the medic bay. The three paladins and Coran came quickly but stopped abruptly at the sight before them, after a few moments to gather himself, Lance was the first one to step closer and gently ran his trembling hand through the other teen's hair as tears formed and slide down his cheeks.

" por favor, despiértese, Kylee. ..." The blue paladin's voice was thick and watery, Hunk and Pidge watched with sad expressions. Hunk knew the Cuban boy since elementary school and knew he switched to his mother tongue when he was extremely upset. Everyone gasped softly as the white haired teen slowly woke up and set his eyes on Lance and Keith, giving a weak purr.

"Hi, guys...Keith, your okay. That's good." Keith gave a weak smile, eyes clearly showing concern. Lance wiped his eyes.

"Of course I'm okay, you idiot. I'm more worried about you."

"Kylee, do you know how to get that collar off? " asked Shiro

"It's voiced activated by who bought me which is Sendak and-"

"Wait, bought you?" asked Hunk, brow furrowed in concern.

"I was apparently in a slave auction of some kind and given how I was dressed, i'd say i was being presented as a sex object." The teen replied bluntly, silence filled the room as the words sunk in and after a few moments, Pidge spoke up.

"S-so since we don't have any audio recordings of Sendak's voice anymore is there another way to get it off?" Kylee shook his head no.

"Wait, when I tried to take it off, it shocked you so...Pidge, maybe if you use your bayard on the collar it'll fry the tech." Keith replied, Pidge flinched.

"W-what? Why not use your sword or Shiro's arm?"

"I tried that earlier and for some reason it didn't work."

"And I'm afraid I might cut an artery..." Pidge gritted her teeth as she summoned her bayard but find that she couldn't bring herself to do it and the others couldn't blame her.

"I-I'm sorry...I can't do it..but I won't stop looking for another solution" Her voice was shaky as she looked away and had her bayard vanish back into her suit. Kylee nodded softly in understanding then was helped into a healing pod by Lance and Keith, the two sat near by and waited. Once the pod was done, Keith caught Kylee from hitting the floor. He frowned softly that the injury across his nose became a scar just like his brother figure's and the galra empire brand mark still showed on his chest. The white haired teen's eyes slowly opened and Lance got up, embracing the two.

Kylee groaned softly as light filtered through the curtains and turned towards the warmth that embraced him, purring softly at the mixed scents of sage and sandalwood. He stirred when he felt a hand run through his hair and his eyes fluttered open to see Lance and Keith on either side of him.

"Hey, Tiger...how'd you sleep? Pidge messaged me and said she found a way to take off your cuffs and collar without hurting you." Kylee sat up and yawned with a stretch. Later on, when the cuffs and collar were finally off via high frequency sound wave, Kylee and Keith were having sword practice until they were tired and laid on the training room floor together.

"Sooo, Ky, Where's this blade of Marmora base?"

"We have a few of them scattered throughout the stars. The one my father figures had, Ulaz and Thace, theirs was in the Thaldycon system. they died on a mission when I was about fifteen." Keith felt a pang of sadness for the other half galra teen.

" I'm sorry that happened to you."

" I was raised this way. The mission before your life is the basic motto more or less and I've followed since I passed my blade training at thirteen. Anyway, our main base is in the Epsilon Suden System, on a planet called Cordia. The climate is hot and humid during the day but it cools down at night and it's really nice to go for a walk sometimes cause the tropical forests have bioluminescent qualities in various shades of blue, pink,purple and green. The natives, the Malluxians, use massive crystals powered by their magic to actually hide the planet by creating the illusion of a black hole. Malluxians have scaly tails and their skin tones come in pastel pink, purple, blue or green. They can produce crystal spikes from their tails that they can fling as projectiles and have horns to ward off enemies. They also have high durability and pain tolerance as well as inhuman speed and reflexes. They can regrow limbs if they happen to lose one. One of my best friends is actually the prince of the planet although I haven't seen him in Deca-phoebs. The planet gets a lot of rain, sometimes four times a day from what I remember. " The teen explained

"Wow, this place sounds pretty cool. "

"It is. That planet became my home until I got my first blade mission at fifteen. But...why do you want to know?"

"Well, two things. First is I wanted to know more about you and second is...I want to try and find my mother. She left earth when I was a baby and all I have to go on is her blade. I don't know what she looks like, I don't even know her name..." Kylee sat up, twiddling with his gift from Keith in its knife form.

" my mom died in a car accident when I was only two years old, according to my dad. He didn't take much with him when he left earth, just me and a couple pictures of my mom. He told me her name was Evangeline and she was French slash Japanese. He said she was so kind and nice although she had abit of a temper if you pushed her too far. He often joked that he was afraid of her more so then Zarkon." Keith smiled softly as he listened.

" She sounds great, I wish I got to meet her."

"...me too."

* * *

Kylee blinked rapidly, confusion and panic pricked at him, wondering why he was on a cat walk where there was blue electricity running along the walls and how he got there in the first place.

"W-what the quiznak? Where am I? Last thing I remember was going to bed with Lance and Keith like I usually do..." He looked around and saw an elevator door then with a soft frown, he took the elevator back up and after several tries he found the floor to the main bridge then got out and walked to the bedrooms, slipping back into the one he shared with Keith and Lance, the two of them cuddled up together with Lance's arm thrown over Keith's waist. Kylee slowly and gently climbed back in as not to disturbed the two only for Keith to shift and turn over to face him while still sleeping, placing an arm over his chest. The former blade member was lulled to sleep by the sounds of purrs and steady breathing and the scents of the red and blue paladin.

Kylee woke up to find himself alone in bed, his ears tilted down slightly in disappointment when he noticed a small note by the bedside table.

**-Tiger**

**you looked tired, so Keith and I didn't want to wake you up. Keith is in the training room, like always and I'm helping Hunk with come up with ideas your birthday cake cause if we were on earth right now, your birthday would be in four days.**

**From, Lance.**

**Ps: I know it's early but I couldn't help it. There was a space mall near by, it wasn't as big as the one we went to last time but I wanted to get you something. Also they're magnetic so don't worry about getting a hole put in you.**

Kylee raised an eyebrow but grabbed the small pouch and opened it up, gasping softly with his eyes slightly wide. He reached in and pulled out elongated amethyst droplet earrings that were accented with white diamonds. He set them down on table then took a shower then dried off and got dressed in the outfit Lance bought him, slipping on the heart fingerless gloves and putting on the earrings. Then he headed out the door when Pidge suddenly showed up and grabbed him by the hand, tugging him along with a grin.

"Pidge, where the quiznak are you taking me?" He asked as Pidge as they went down the hall

"You'll see. Just hang on and close your eyes." The taller teen frowned but relented until the green paladin suddenly stopped.

"Okay, open them." He did as asked and looked with wide eyes and tears formed at the scene before them, it was a paladin suit but rather than black or red or even pink, it was purple.

"By the stars...you guys made me a suit?" He asked, voice watery with emotion as he wiped his eyes.

"Of course. You part of the team, after all." Shiro replied with a smile

"Go try it on, dude." The blue paladin tossed the helmet towards the half breed who caught it with ease.

"But what about my fire ability? And my tail?"

"I took that into account and made modifications, the fabric is fire-proof and lava proof so you don't have to worry about ruining your suit. Also Lance fixed your suit, he added a slit in the fabric so your tail can slide through." Pidge explained while adjusting her glasses. The teen grinned and grabbed the rest of his suit, running off. Moments later, he stepped out with the helmet underneath his arm.

"Oh, Kylee, you look very handsome!" Allura gushed

"Yea, you look almost as good as me" Lance chimed in, earning an eye roll from number five. Suddenly alarms went off and everyone quickly went to the observation deck.

"Coran, what's the problem?" asked Shiro, the older Altean pulled up the screen and expanded it so everyone could see a planet made of snow and ice.

"It's the Dulari planet, home to the Dubearns. They sent out a distress signal. It's a very cold planet but your suits'll keep you protected from the cold, however I wouldn't recommend going swimming. The waters on this planet are colder then a Tilget in the Phoeb of Crux " Coran explained as he pulled up several screens of icy landscapes and beings with skins in various shades of blue and white markings with long pointed ears.

"We'll go check it out. Come on, Team." Shiro took off and the others followed but stopped and looked back with a small smile.

"That includes you, Kylee." The white hair teen's tail wagged as he quickly followed after them once he put on his helmet.


	13. Chapter 13

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also i did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, wrote chapters 1-5. I wrote chapters 6-13 and i own my Voltron OC: Kylee. side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. feel free to make fan art. )

* * *

Kylee held the seat as Keith flew Red towards the planet, falling in line next to the black lion when Pidge spoke through the com link.

"So, green scanned the planet and it has an atmosphere similar to earth so we should just switch to visor mode on our helmets."

"Okay, good. Stay Alert, team." Replied Shiro as their lions landed and each of the members got out of their lions.

"So this is what Earth looks like? " Kylee's tail flicked about as he look in all the snow and ice.

"In some places, yea. But each area of the planet as a different climate, so in some places it's hot and muggy while others are dry and cold." Hunk explained and the purple paladin's eyes sparkled.

"By the stars, that sounds amazing! I can't wait to experience it!" He blinked and swiftly moved out of the way as a snow ball flew past him. Lance frowned while Hunk wiped the snow off his helmet.

"Aw, man. Thought I had you, Lee." The blue paladin pouted

"Lance, focus." Shiro scolded as he looked around to see a rather large city up ahead.

"Let's go see if anyone is able to talk to us there." The black Paladin began walking and the others followed.

Kylee let out a sigh after about an hour of walking.

"Guys, just cause I'm insanely strong and have a higher body temperature than all of you doesn't mean I'm a walking heater" the half-breed said in irritation, while he bridal carried Hunk who had Pidge sitting on his stomach and Lance on his back.

"Your so warm, dude! It's crazy!" Lance said as he nuzzled the purple teen's face who blushed

"Guys, we're here." Keith called out and Kylee promptly set down hunk who set down Pidge. Then Lance got off his back as they stepped forward into the town. They were greeted by a small group of armored guards in white.

"Paladins of Voltron, thank you for coming. Please right this way to the castle, her majesty wishes to speak with you." Stated a male guard with pastel blue skin and white markings that reminded Lance of a cheetah. He frowned slightly when he saw the guard cast a glance at Kylee but looked away and turned back around, they followed as the guard began walking in the direction of the castle.

The guard took them to castle and to the throne room, where sitting on a white throne was a women with dark blue skin and white markings that looked similar to a leopard's stripes, she wore a silver fur coat with a crown made of ice icicles and a black staff that looked similar to a candle candelabra with dark blue jewels dangling from the end.

"Hello, Paladins. I am Queen Lulani. Forgive me for saying so but I was unaware that there were six of you." She glanced at Kylee for a brief moment then shifted her attention back to Shiro.

" why'd you call us here?" asked the black paladin, moments later a holographic map appeared and the Queen began her explanation.

"Galra ships crashed on our planet several quintents ago and have managed to capture a few our smaller towns and villages. We've done our best to try and put up a fight but their technology is more advanced than ours at the moment." She explained, Shiro nodded.

"Don't worry, your highness. We'll take care of it." He reassured as he took a small device from the Queen.

"This is a location tracker, it gives where the galra have taken over."

"Alright, lets go, guys." They walked back through town, Kylee trying to ignore the whispers that hit his ears.

"I didn't know that Voltron was taking Galra recruits."

"I didn't even know Voltron could have six members"

"They can't so maybe he's some sorta feral pet." Suddenly, the male Dubearns made a noise of pain as they were shocked with green electrical energy.

"Whoops. My Bayard malfunctioned, sorry about that. " Pidge apologized with a bite in her tone and glint of anger in her eye as she put away her Bayard. The other Paladins glared daggers at the two natives who quickly took off.

"Thanks, guys..."

"No problem, buddy." replied Hunk as they went back to walking. After awhile they hid behind a large snow hill, occasionally looking at the town entrance which was being patrolled by two Galra guards.

"Okay, so Kylee you'll use your speed to go over and take out the guards then zip through the town and see how many there are. Then report back here and we'll figure it out from there." Kylee nodded and was gone as soon as they blinked. They heard the sound of blasters go off and the sound of groaning followed by someone hitting the snow. About three minutes later, the purple paladin returned.

"There's about ten, minus the two guards I took out at the front. They have the women and children in a worker building at the moment and from the equipment that I saw around the area, they have the men mining something in the caves near by." The black paladin nodded and began telling the others the plan on what they would be doing.

Kylee finished taking out several galra soldiers when suddenly his head hurt so sharply that he saw double and closed his eyes for just a second.

"Ky! Watch it!" Shouted Keith, the white haired teen opened his eyes and hissed softly as he managed to dodge a blade but it sliced through the fabric on his suit and received a decent sized gash, he snarled and grabbed the galra solider by the head and slammed them into the snow.

Keith almost reached out towards the wound, blood had already started to wet the fabric and Kylee shot in a look the other a look.

" I'm fine. It's just a scratch." Keith glared at him, his eyes flashing yellow for a brief moment

"The hell it is!" The other paladins came over when the last of the soldiers were taken care of.

"What's going on? What happened?" Shiro asked and he froze when he saw the black fabric turn dark with blood and his face grew stern. Keith melted the snow that was nearby with his fire while Lance collected the water and placed it over Kylee's injury who hissed softly at the cold contact on his skin, slowly the wound healed.

"I..I got a really bad headache, that's all. i lost focus and got cut."

"Okay, Kylee, go free women and children. The rest of us will go deal with the guards in the caves." Shiro glanced at the sealed injury but put that aside for right now and the team split up. The purple paladin raced off to the building and melted off the lock on the doors to see the woman and children huddled together. They flinched and trembling at the sight of him.

"It's okay, everyone! We're here to save you! I'm with the paladins of Voltron!" He shouted so everyone could hear then held out a clawed hand to a child near by who almost took it until a mother came and slapped it away while pulling the young boy close, her eyes burned with fear and anger.

"Lies! You must've killed one of the paladins and stole their armor in an attempt to lure us out! As if Voltron would recruit a dangerous and barbaric being like the galra in their ranks!" The teen felt like he'd been kicked in the gut by her harsh words and took a step back. But swallowed and steeled himself, looking her dead in the eye.

"Ma'am, please. Get out of here and head for the main capital, I'm sure the Queen will be ready to set you up with everything." He summoned a small flame out of his hand to light a stick that was near by in order to light the way when they left as it appeared to be getting dark soon but everyone scattered and left, shouting and yelling that the galra was going to burn the building with everyone inside. He snuffed out the flame in his hand as he swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Shiro, all the women and children are headed for the capital." He spoke through the com in his helmet.

"Okay, good. Thanks, Kylee. Is something wrong?" asked the team leader, concern in his voice.

"No. Everything is fine." He lied as tears stung his eyes.

"Alright. Well meet us at the town entrance in sixty ticks."

"Sure thing." He replied and took off shortly after.

* * *

The group walked along the icy landscape, hunk glanced back at Kylee who took the rear and frowned softly.

"Kylee's been really quiet."

"Kylee's always quiet" replied number five, Hunk gave her an annoyed look.

"No I mean, something doesn't feel right with them. I bet something happened at that town." A few moments later they heard a beeping sound as Lance stepped forward and there was an explosion of snow, when it cleared, Lance was barely standing.

"Lance!" Keith shouted as quickly rushed over and helped support the blue paladin. Everyone froze when they heard ice cracking.

"Keith, Move!" shouted Shiro but the ice broke before they had the chance.

"Keith! Lance!" shouted Pidge, she flinched as she saw a blur of purple go by and dive into the dark icy water.

Number five activated her Bayard and quickly shot the grappling hook into the water, minutes felt like hours as her anxiety went up more and more until she felt something grab on. Hunk and Shiro quickly came over and help pull up the three teens. Shiro noticed that Keith and Lance were already showing signs of hypothermia despite the insulation that their suits provided, Kylee however was fine and assumed it to be having a higher body temperature then the rest of them.

"Kylee, take Keith and Lance back to the capital. Get their suits off and take yours off too. Your going to have to get layers of blankets and anything else that'll keep them warm. Get into bed with them in order to bring their temperature back up."

"Right. Keith, get on my back. I'll carry Lance." Kylee then took off, leaving a cloud of snow behind. The Queen gave them a spare room and anything else they needed. Kylee quickly stripped to his underwear which was surprisingly dry.

"Keith, do you need help?" The red paladin shook his head and began undressing despite the shaking.

"J-just help L-Lance..." The purple paladin nodded and helped the Cuban boy, trying not to look too much at his caramel colored skin. Soon both boys were in bed, Kylee gritted his teeth while blushing red, quickly turning away from the scene in front of him.

"No big deal, Ky...this is a survival thing. Just getting in a bed with two people of you maybe deep in love with while the three of you are wearing nothing but your underwear, nothing weird about that..." He mumbled to himself as he climbed into bed and slide underneath the covers between the two. The white haired teen flinched slightly as he felt the Cuban boy quickly latch on to him.

"Coño...so warm.." He gulped as heard the taller teens voice just above his ear, a moment later he felt Keith snuggle up to him. Moments passed just listening to the sound of their breathing along with Keith's purring and the purple paladin slowly began to fall a sleeping, purring softly. Eventually the three of them woke up but stayed close to one another.

"So, what happened back at the town? You were quiet. " Kylee gripped the blanket and let out a shaky sigh.

"Those women and those kids...they were angry and terrified of me...they thought I was one of those galra soldiers that killed and impersonated a paladin of Voltron cause why would they recruit a dangerous and barbaric being like the galra?" He spoke the last part with a bitter tone, anger clear his voice as tears stung his eyes. He flinched when he felt Keith grab his face and was forced to look him in the eyes.

"Hey, your not dangerous or barbaric. Your our friend who has a connection with the red lion. Just because you look more Galra then I do doesn't mean anything." Kylee purred at the red paladin's words when he felt a chin resting on his shoulder.

"Did I ever tell you guys i like hearing you two purr? It helps me sleep better plus it's kinda cute." Lance asked, the red and purple paladins blushed at Lance's nonchalant statement.

"I'm going out to see how the others are doing. " Kylee got up from the bed and put on his suit, now dry.

"I'm coming with you. "He glanced back to see Keith getting out of bed.

"Me too." agreed Lance, both boys putting on their suits as well. Kylee sighed.

"Fine. But watch where you step this time, alright?" He replied and activated the com link in his helmet.

"Shiro, come in. What's your status?" Static answered

"Shiro, come in. " He frowned when he received no answer and looked to the others who wore worried expressions.

Kylee skidded to a stop where they last left the other paladins, putting down the red paladin while Lance climbed off their back. The three saw the foot prints in the snow and began to follow them. Once they made it to the town, they saw that the guards were taken care of when Keith spotted Shiro's helmet and made a grab for it when suddenly a roar rang through the town. Kylee and the others swiftly turned around to see anthropomorphic cat-like creature with no eyes.

"Quiznak..." the blue paladin breathed as summoned his bayard, firing rapidly only for the plasma blasts to bounce off the armor as the creature ran towards them. The three teens moved out of the way.

"Anybody got any ideas?" Keith asked as the beast began to sniff for them.

"Go find the rest of the team. I'll buy you two sometime." He rushed forward, throwing claw fulls of fire at it. Lance hesitated for a moment then took off, trying to tune out the roars and the sound of buildings being broken while Keith gritted his teeth so hard his jaw started to ache but sharply turned around and ran off after Lance. While searching they found Hunk with civilians behind him, cannon at the ready and almost opened fire on Keith until he saw it was him.

"Keith! Thank goodness! Where's Lance and Kylee?" He asked, the red paladin stepped into the room as he put away his bayard for now.

"Lance is still looking for Pidge and Shiro, Kylee is dealing with the robeast."

"By himself?! Are you serious?!" Keith looked outside to see the purple paladin with a large majority of his suit either cracked or bits broken off, the helmet gone, in pieces in the snow near by. Kylee snarled and bared his fangs, a jet of fire leaving his mouth. The robeast yowled in pain as it backed off and before it could fully react the white haired teen tackled the creature.

"I mean yeah, he's strong like crazy strong but he can't keep that up, can he?"

"Which is why we need to find Shiro and Pidge to give him support." He glanced at the civilians.

"Stay here unless it's no longer safe then make your way out of here through any emergency exits you have here. Come on, Hunk."

Meanwhile, Shiro flinched when the building he and Pidge were in shook and quickly activated his robotic arm, placing Pidge behind him due to be out cold, when the door opened and relaxed when he saw Lance.

"Lance! It's really good to see you, where are the others?"

"Keith went looking for all you guys and Lee's dealing with the robeast." Shiro's eyes widened slightly and quickly went to one of the windows, just in time to see Kylee slam hard into a building; the force of the impact creating an cracks in the wall but the half breed kept moving and slashed at the where it's eyes would be, causing it to reel back in pain and dropping the purple paladin to the ground who managed to get back up despite the various bruises and cuts on their exposed skin. The look in his eyes reminded so much of Shiro in the arena, the animalistic need to fight in order to survive. The black paladin watched as he let out a roar and slammed into the creature, only to be kicked off by the beast and have his head pressed into the ground by its deadly claws.

"Kylee!" The four paladins shouted in unison, Shiro saw at the corner of his eye and watched Lance and Keith jump from the window. They landed on the ground and without missing a beat, Lance summoned his gun and began to fire. Once the beast turned its attention to the blue paladin, Keith rush forward and managed to cut off the creature's arm. But they all gasped when it suddenly grew back and was about to go after one of the paladins.

"N-no way..." Lance breathed out, he flinched when the beast suddenly stopped its action and roared in pain, trying to shake something off its back and when it turned around slightly, He saw Kylee clinging to the metal armor, his markings glowing bright red as the lava began to eat through the armor and to the skin. A few moments later, the beast slammed into the ground in order to get Kylee off, creating a large creator in the ground and despite him being shock, his body still got up and weakly bared his fangs to which the robeast growled and rush forward to kill the half breed.

"No!" Without thinking, Lance stepped forward with his hand out stretched. The beast was stuck in place, thick spikes of ice pierced its body, killing it instantly.

Lance panted softly as his markings stopped glowing and fell to his knees with a tired sigh and watched with a concern expression as Kylee began to pass out, Keith caught him just in time before he hit the ground. Shiro and Hunk came out with Pidge shortly after, finally awake.

"What happened? Why is he like this?" Allura asked, her voice filled concern as she helped Keith put Kylee into the cryro-pod.

"It was a robeast that the galra had on one of their ships. It must've gotten loose and roamed around until it ended up at that town we were trying to set free, it even went after the galra soldiers that were there. Kylee...Kylee was amazing, he took on the robeast all by himself and even with all the injuries...he wouldn't allow it to hurt Lance or Keith and only stopped fighting when Lance used this really cool ice power to kill to the robeast." Hunk explained

"Ice power? You mean you activated the subset element of your quintessence magic? Thats incredible, Lance!" Allura praised, the blue paladin gave a prideful smirk but quickly turned his eyes on the frosted healing pod.

"It was scary how he acted...like...like he was willing to die if it meant we were safe...as if his own life didn't matter to him..." He spoke softly, Keith felt a fire burn deep in his gut.

"So, how long is he gonna been in there?" asked Pidge who was sitting on the floor, looking up at the pod. The princess's advisor pulled up a screen to look over the half-breed's condition.

"Several broken ribs, some head trauma, internal bleeding, bruising on various areas as well as gashes on his face and neck...so, a few quintants." The room was quiet after the announcement was made. The red paladin turned and left the medic bay with clenched fists as he walked towards the training room and began immediately, ignoring the tears that pricked his eyes.

* * *

Pidge dashed down the hall in excitement, the other paladins already crowding the pod, today Kylee was waking up and sure the team was doing okay with the soldiers but having someone as fast and strong as Kylee helped out a lot. Keith was scowling at the container and gently tapped at it.

"Come on already..."

"Relax, mullet, he'll be out soon enough..." Lance reassured gently.

"How much longer, Coran?"

"About five ticks" moments passed and everyone waited with baited breathe until the pod's casing dissolved. Shiro and Keith reached out, catching the half-breed as he stumbled out of the pod.

"Ky? You awake, buddy?" asked the raven haired teen, eyes watching the purple skinned half breed with concern. Kylee stirred slightly as his eyes fluttered open as everything slowly came into focus.

"Keith?" He spoke hoarsely and coughed a few moments later as Shiro and Keith helped them get on the medic bay bed, Hunk handed him a water pouch and he began drinking immediately.

"You've been out for quite awhile, Number 3.2. So you'll need to take it easy for the rest of the day, no training. We'll get you to your room in just a few ticks then it's fluids and food" Coran explained to which Kylee frowned.

"But I've basically been in a bed this whole time. I don't want to be confined to my room. " He replied as he finished off the water pouch.

"So we'll make you a blanket nest in the observation deck and we'll hang out until you get sick of us" Lance answered with a grin, the half-breed's tail wagged at the idea and in a matter of moments, everyone was in comfy clothes and the two alteans and other galra half breed listened as each of the five paladins told stories about earth and what it was like while among the blankets and pillows.

The next day, Kylee put on his suit when Keith came in from the bathroom, rubbing his hair dry.

"Ky...I..I don't think you should come on the mission today." Kylee frowned softly with ears tilted down slightly.

"What? Why? I can obviously handle myself, I mean I took on a robeast." Keith scowled softly but kept going

" I never said you couldn't, I just don't like you throwing away your life like it's nothing." Keith's tone had abit of irritation to it which it made Kylee's tail flick sharply back and forth to show his irritation and Kylee found his voice getting louder.

"What does it matter? So long as I don't die and the mission is complete, what's the big deal?" Keith hissed sharply in frustration as the whites of his eyes turned yellow.

"What does it matter?! It matters a whole lot to me, it matters a whole lot to Lance! Your not a part of the blade anymore, Kylee! Your a member of Voltron now! I don't want you to put yourself in that type of situation if Lance and I can help you! I hated seeing you like that because I love you, you idiot and I can't stand seeing the one I love get hurt when I can do something about it!" Keith shouted at him but then flinch as he slowly started to calm his anger and blush bright red while Kylee was stunned into silence before his face was blushing bright red as well.

"Y-you love me?" Keith raked a hand through his hair as his face remained red with embarrassment.

"Yes...I love you. Which is why I don't want to see you like how you were a few days ago. It was scary, Ky...Lance and I were really worried about you." Keith replied but Kylee frowned softly

"Wait, what type of love? Like how you love Shiro?" The red paladin snickered and shook his head as he stepped forward. Keith smiled and cupped Kylee's jaw in his hand while his thumb brushed the white haired teen's bottom lip, pressing into it.

"I would never do this with Shiro." he breathed then closed the distance, meeting Kylee's lips with his.

This was…amazing. Keith's lips were amazing, soft, full and delicious and Keith could say the same for Kylee but had been abit nervous about the fangs but when they did make an appearance, when Kylee nipped at Keith's bottom lip, it was just the right amount of pressure, the perfect balance to the silky, soft skin gliding along his own and when Kylee was ready, he dipped his tongue in and Keith's tongue came to meet him and they rolled together, exploring, savoring, in no hurry at all.

Eventually, Keith pulled away for air but rested his forehead against Kylee's, puffs of air filling in the space between their lips while the two of them occasionally purred between pants.

"Proof enough for you that I don't love you the way I love Shiro?" Kylee could only manage a nod and mumble a swear softly to which Keith smirked then pulled away and went to go dressed in his paladin suit.

The team spent the rest of the day freeing the villages and towns from the galra. Kylee was still disheartened that a large majority of Dubearns still didn't trust him because of how he looked but at least tomorrow was his birthday and he could choose what planet they visited next. Exhausted after freeing the final location from the galra soldiers, the paladins headed back to the castle where the queen greeted them.

"Thank you, Paladins. Your help has been greatly appreciated." The queen spoke with an elegant smile from her throne, Keith scowled at her.

"You should be thanking Kylee. It would have taken us a lot longer if it weren't for his help." The red paladin replied and Kylee stepped forward, feeling abit uncomfortable and shifted on his feet as he looked up at the queen who held her smile but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Thank you for your help as well, Kylee. You're not bad for a galra. I suppose you must be one of the good ones, how very rare for your kind." Kylee flinched at her back handed compliment but spoke up.

"No, that's not true. There are more good galra out there, I'm sure if my father were here he would have helped your people." The queen scowled at him.

"How rude. I'm trying to pay you a compliment."

"Then why does it sound like an insult?" Lance seethed his voice cold as his markings glowed and thin ice coated the pillars and crawled along the walls in the room.

"You dare use your magic against me? Guards, escort these humans and their galra out of my castle at once."

"Don't go to the trouble. We'll see ourselves out, your highness." Shiro said politely but the sharp tone he carried in his voice told otherwise. He turned and headed out with the others in tow. Lance and Keith cuddled with Kylee once back at the castle.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with that." Lance said quietly as he had his arm around the purple paladin's waist while Keith had his arm over both the blue and purple paladin.

"Is it alright if we don't talk about this anymore? I just wanna focus on my birthday tomorrow."

"Oh, so where do you want to go? " Kylee thought for a moment.

"I want to take you all to the main base. I'm sure you'd all like it and...I wanna help you find your mom, Keith." The red paladin smiled softly, gently intertwining his fingers with the purple paladin's and gave his knuckles light kisses to which the fellow half breed purred at the gesture.

"Whoa, really? Can you do that?" Lance asked, curiosity in his voice as he spooned Kylee with the other's tail loosely draped over the water guardian's waist.

"Eh, well, I mean I can't technically but I can tell you how. Okay so, first thing is your going to have to become a blade like me which will be official when you activate your blade's sword mode then it's added to the data base and since it's your mom's knife then that means it should bring up her name and image on the computer. Although I'm not sure if it will give her last location..." Kylee's ears tilted down slightly but Keith shook his head softly.

" it's fine, Ky. It would be enough just to know what she looks like and have a name to go with that face." The three eventually fell asleep, cuddled close to one another.

* * *

Kylee jolted awake suddenly to see he was in what appeared to be the main power room with a keypad open, his fingers hovering over the screen's buttons. The white haired teen swallowed as he trembled as he back away and quickly left the room. He chewed on his thumb nail as he went to Coran's room, finding it by the older altean's scent. Which reminded the teen of books and pine trees, he paced back and forth in front of Coran's room with his tail flicking sharply. He turned towards the door and raised his hand in order to knock but hesitated. He sighed softly and left the hall, heading to the room he shared with Lance and Keith. The white haired teen climbed into bed, snuggling up to Lance and purred softly when the other took him into his arms. Kylee drifted off to sleep to the sound of the water guardian's heart beat and Keith's purring.

Kylee stirred awake the next morning, frowning softly when he couldn't smell the scents of neither Keith or Lance nearby. He took a quick shower and put on his outfit that Lance bought him, panicking slightly when he couldn't find the heart hole sleeves gloves but relaxed when he found them in the table side drawer. He slipped them on and then put on the earrings and tied his sneakers.

" thank the stars for my sensitive hearing. So, everyone is in bridge." He mumbled to himself as he got and left the roomful, heading to the bridge, flinching when he heard the sound of popping and confetti and colored streamers flew at him.

"Happy Birthday, Kylee!" He heard the paladins as well as the princess and her advisor say with glee, the white haired teen took in the banner and cake as well as a few small gifts and cards. The teen felt tears form despite the large grin on his face.

"Thank you everyone!"


	14. Chapter 14

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-14 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

* * *

Allura paced back and forth in her room, having finished a left over slice of Kylee's birthday cake, the mice ate the crumbs and small left over chunks while sitting on her bed.

"I know we told Kylee we would take him to his blade base as his birthday gift. But what if it's some sort of trap? I've never heard of this planet or star system he mentioned." The mice squeaked in reply.

"Yes I know the castle is old and hasn't updated its star system log. But I saw him sneaking around the lower levels quite a few times in the past few movements. How do we know he's not a spy that's actually working for the galra pretending to work against them? Like he's a double spy or something?" The mice squeaked again, sounding more firm.

"Yes, I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt since he's been working so well with the team and protected them so fiercely..." Allura finished with a small sigh

Kylee tossed and turned in the bed he shared with the red and blue paladin who were doing training sessions with Shiro and the others. He felt incredibly hot, more so then normal and his lower abdomen felt sore. He made a noise of discomfort as he got off his left side then on to his back and sat up, frowning in confusion when he felt as if he sat in something wet. He got out of bed and looked behind him to see a wet spot on the back of his briefs.

"The Quiznak..." He went over to the intercom panel and pressed the button.

"Coran, could you come here? I think I'm sick.." he waited a few moments.

"Sure thing, my boy. Give me a few ticks."

Moments later, just as Kylee saw Coran come in the room he felt dizzy and started to fall. Coran quickly caught him and sat him down on the bed.

"Easy there, lad." Kylee blinked away his blurred vision to see his markings were glowing and steam was literally coming off his body.

"Coran, w-what's wrong with me? I'm all hot and my stomach area feels sore and this clear liquid keeps coming out of me..."

"Ah, your first heat it would appear. Although for your body temperature to be this high wouldn't be normal I suppose it be too being experimented on by the witch. Now, did your father ever tell you about heats? Or any of the other blade members?" Kylee shook his head no.

"Okay, right...so, a Heat is when an Omega is most fertile and ready to mate. However sometimes omegas just hide away until the heat is over, making nests. During these heats, you may be abit more hormonal and release a scent. Also your sense of smell will most likely be even more developed and be able to pick out the exact scent of individuals rather then just a general idea. " Kylee tested this out and breathe deeply, rather then smelling Coran's usual scent of pine trees and books, he got an entire list worth. He smelled black rum with apple and mint as well as white orchid and clove with cinnamon and hints of tobacco, oud and leather. He wasn't attracted to the scent but he didn't hate it either, it felt sort of comforting in a way, like a smell he'd imagine a father figure would have.

"Now, then, since your an Alpha with Omega qualities, Your heats will be short but potent. Now, this part I'm going to explain to you maybe uncomfortable but you need to be educated, my boy. So, inside you is a second chamber, normally it's small and practically nonexistent but when your in heat it grows and your second chamber produces a liquid that self lubricates. This way it makes it easier and less painful to mate with someone, also if you were to mate with someone and they finished in your second chamber, you have the chance at bearing offspring. Which is why at the first space mall we come across on our way to your base's planet, we're buying thandors." Kylee raised an eyebrow.

"What are those?"

"Thandors are thin circular rubber coverings that go over a young person's member. They prevent the ability to produce off spring" Kylee flinched and blushed as a certain image floated into his head.

"Anyway, as I was saying, now since Keith is an Alpha and has his Galra DNA slightly increased by that blast of pure quintessence awhile ago, he will most likely smell your scent soon if he hasn't already and probably won't leave your side unless to get food or something to drink. He'll also be overly protective and he may try to mate with you but under no circumstances are you to give in unless you decide you want to, understood, number 3.2?" Kylee nodded and Coran nodded as well.

"Good. Now, go take a cold shower to try and cool off, I'll look for the nearest space mall. Do you need help getting to the bath room?" Kylee shook his head no, then Coran left the room.

Keith was sparing with Shiro after taking out Pidge and Lance, who sat on the sidelines with Hunk and the three drank water pouches when suddenly Keith seemed to freeze and the whites of his eyes turned yellow as he inhaled deeply, dodging a punch from the black paladin.

"Huh, Keith, buddy? You alright?" asked Hunk, Keith didn't seem to hear him as he swiftly jumped over Shiro who tumbled to the training room floor. The garrison trio gasped.

"Whoa! I didn't know you could jump that high!" Pidge said in astonishment, Keith glanced at them, a look of confusion on his face.

" you guys can't smell that?" Keith closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

"Uhh, no. Exactly what are we supposed to be smelling?" Lance asked as he finished the rest of his water pouch.

"It's a bunch of different scents rolled together but it smells so nice. There's peach, cassis and melon with this leafy green scent then there's rose, iris, muguet with jasmine. There's also musk as well as amber and vanilla with sandalwood."

"That does sound pretty. Maybe Allura lit a scented candle nearby?" Hunk suggested, Keith shook his head softly.

"I don't think so, I wouldn't feel like...I need to go find what the smell is so badly if it was just a candle." The red paladin replied then headed out of the training room in a quick fashion, clearly determined to find the source of that lovely smell.

Keith followed the scent to the room he shared with Kylee and Lance, when the scent practically hit in him in the face as the doors slide open just as Kylee was about to put on his shirt. The red paladin found his body moving on its own and he held the other close, burying his face into the side of his neck and inhaled deeply.

"Kylee, this is coming from you? You smell so beautiful." Kylee blushed and shivered when he felt Keith's fangs gently nip and bite at his skin.

"Keith, knock it off." the more human looking half breed gave a smug grin at the other's protests and nuzzled him, purring softly.

"But I can't help it, it's all instinct." He replied with a teasing tone as he ran fingers along the others skin, he frowned softly when he felt Kylee tense under his touch as the red paladin touched the brand mark that was a permanent reminder of the galra empire.

"You don't belong to the empire, Ky. You're your own person but...I'd really like to have you if you'd let me." Kylee blushed slightly and gently pulled away, laying down on the bed.

" it wouldn't be fair to Lance for you to have me all to yourself." Keith shrugged and joined him on the bed, snuggling up close to him.

" I don't mind having him join in, kinda wondering if he's all talk and no show." Kylee hit him with the other pillow lightly, the raven haired teen chuckled in reply.

"So what's up with you? How come I can smell you and the others can't?" Kylee then went into the huge explanation that Coran gave him

"So Thandors are just space condoms then,huh? "

"I guess." There was a pause of silence between the two before Keith spoke up again.

"How are you feeling? Still sore?" The white haired teen nodded in response and he received a kiss on his forehead.

"I'll go get you some pain pills and a water pouch." Keith got out of bed and left the room. He turned away from the door and curled up to try and help with the pain but it did little to help when he heard the door open but rather then smelling Keith's scent which was amazing, this was just as amazing. He closed his eyes and inhaled, getting an image of Lance and sure enough it was confirmed when he heard the Cuban's voice, soft with concern.

"Lee? You alright? You've been in bed all morning..." Kylee turned towards the blue paladin and purred weakly when he ran his fingers through his hair, Lance frowned softly.

"Your even warmer then you normally are...are you okay? Are you sick?" He asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed, still running his fingers through Kylee's hair.

"No, it's a galra thing I guess? Sort of? I mean I guess other species go through this too but anyway, I'm kinda okay. Keith just went to go get me pain meds and water." Lance nodded but still kept the concerned expression.

"Is there anything I can get you?" The purple skinned teen thought for a moment.

"I want you." Lance flinched sharply and blushed at the sudden proclamation.

" y-you what?" Rather then repeat himself, Kylee reached out and made grabby hand gestures as if to tell the taller teen to climb into bed with him and Lance wasn't gonna lie, the gesture was super cute especially with the pleading look in those ruby red colored cat like eyes.

"Fine, but just cuddling, Lee." He yielded and climbed into bed, Kylee quickly snuggled and breathed in deeply.

"So you can smell scents right? What does mine smell like?" Lance shivered slightly as Kylee buried his face into the side of his neck then inhaled deeply.

" Watery notes with orange and green tea as well as violet, jasmine and rose. There's also musk, peach, amber and sandalwood. " He replied then breathed in again, Lance flinched and held back a soft groan as the purple paladin gently nipped and bit at the other's neck, occasionally sucking until small bright red patches formed.

"L-Lee, stop, no hickies...only cuddling, remember? " Kylee made a noise of disappointment but conceded, settling by snuggling into the fabric of Lance's shirt.

"What are hickies? Is that an earth thing? I prefer the term marking..." Lance felt his face turn scarlet with embarrassment when the doors slide open, the blue eyed teen turned towards the door to see Keith come in with a small bag with two light pink pills and a water pouch, the whites of his eyes still yellow.

"Jeez, Ky, tone down the scent would you? It's hard enough controlling my instincts but now you having fun with Lance isn't really helping and Coran hasn't picked up the thandors yet." Kylee snickered

"Sorry, Keef." He called from the bed in a cute almost innocent tone while peeking over the blue paladin's shoulder.

" and you marked Lance before me? Couldn't wait anymore could you? I mean not that I blame you, Ky. You smell pretty good, Lance." Keith said as he came over and handed Kylee the pain meds and water pouch who took it with a small thank you.

"Uhh, Thanks? Wait, never mind that. What's up with Kylee and what's up with you? Lee left hickies that are definitely gonna bruise." Lance scowled softly at Kylee who reminded the other of his pet cat back home, Pequeno, who almost always looked like he ate the canary. Keith chuckled.

"Okay, so you remember sex ed back home right?" Lance nodded softly with a slightly confused expression.

"Basically, since Kylee has omega qualities, he's on something similar to a period called a heat. Which is affecting me cause he's releasing a certain scent and it got stronger when he was messing with you. Both of you being here, having both omega scents, at least at the moment for Kylee, doesn't help but I'm trying to keep myself in check at least until Coran gets the space condoms cause if either of us have sex with Kylee, there's a high chance he could get pregnant." Lance processed all of this and laid back on the pillow.

"Only in outer space"

A few days had passed and Kylee's heat was finally over, the six of them were in the training room against the training bots. Kylee easily dodged the jabs made by the bot's spear, Allura and Coran were watching them all from the observation deck above.

When Allura made notice of Kylee suddenly shut his eyes and shake his head quickly as if something was bothering him.

"Everyone, out of the room, now! " the other paladin's looked up with a mixture of confusion and concern. Kylee blinked several times but the double vision wouldn't leave as the room's lighting turned purple and he found himself in the empty arena yet again, surrounded by galra soldier bots with Haggar and a person with blue skin and four white horns with ears that reminded him of an Enkril although they were blue rather then the normal yellow. He swiftly turned around to see a bot stepped towards him, it's hand stretched out and he stepped away but it kept coming towards him and he heard a muffled voice from inside the bot and assumed it was one of the witch's tricks yet again.

"You won't fool me, Haggar!" He snarled and summoned a claw full of fire and pushed his arm forward, unleashing the flames.


	15. Chapter 15

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-15 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

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Lance acted quickly and summoned water from a vat in the corner, putting it in place between Keith and the flames that were directed at the red paladin then directed the water around himself in a clockwise motion and out at the white haired teen, the water forced him up against the wall and Lance's markings glowed, turning the water to ice which held the purple paladin in place. The blue paladin acted immediately as with the other's constant struggling, clear fear and desperation on his face, the ice was melting as small wisps of fire left his mouth as he grunted and panted.

"Lee, it's me...its Lance. You're okay, your safe. Haggar isn't here...everything is fine,Tiger. "Lance spoke in a calm and gentle tone as he stepped forward cautiously, Kylee slowly started to relax but Lance kept talking as he got closer.

"Nobody's mad at you, you were just scared. That's all, no big deal, okay?" Lance reached out and touched his face, Kylee blinked a few times and swallowed heavily as he grounded himself to the blue paladin's touch, as if his touch alone cooled the burning fire in him. He looked around and took everything in, there was no arena or Haggar or Galra training bots. Just the training room inside the castle of lions and the looks concern as well as sparks of fear in the eyes of paladins that stood before him and he started to sob, clinging on to Lance's hands which continued to hold his face as he were made of porcelain, kissing his forehead and wiping away his tears with his thumb.

"It's okay, kitten, it's okay..." He whispered

Lance sighed softly as he slowly left the bed he shared with Keith and Kylee. The displaced blade member had wore himself with all that crying and the Cuban took him to bed. Giving Kylee one more final kiss on the forehead, he left the room and headed to the lounge where everyone else was already gathered. Tension hung in the air until Allura broke the silence.

"I'll get a ship ready for Kylee, he can bring whatever he likes with him but he needs to leave."

"What?!" The red and blue paladins exclaimed in unison, Lance's tone was in surprise while Keith's was more of anger.

"He's too much of a liability, what's to say he doesn't have another one of these episodes where he can't tell an enemy from an ally and harms one of you?! The universe needs Voltron! There's too much at risk to have him with us!"

"So we're just going to abandon him?!" Keith shouted back, remembering his times at the group home, being passed off from one family to the other. He flinched slightly when he felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced back to see Shiro step forward.

" we're not abandoning him. Allura, we can help him. Just sending him out into space to most likely be captured by the galra and experimented on again isn't the best choice to make. Lance and I manage to pull him out, I'm sure the others can too if they get one on one time with him."

"Uhh, one on one? Like when he's all fire power? Like twenty doboshes ago?" Hunk asked nervously

"We won't do it right away. In a few quintants. We've still got some time before we head to the blade of Marmora main base." Coran filled in, Hunk relaxed slightly.

" I'm going to do research on this so I'm better prepared to help with him." Pidge replied as she walked off.

Hunk swallowed as he readied himself.

"Relax, Hunk, just remember the tips pidge told you about and everything's fine. Besides, he might not even have an episode. But that's what Allura's hoping for to see if I can pull him out of it like Lance and Shiro can..." He thought to himself as the bots stood on standby and Kylee stood in a relaxed but defensive stance. The yellow paladin glanced at the container of sand nearby as the buzzer went off and the bots rushed forward, Kylee dodged the sword of the altean training bot and quickly pulled out the knife Keith gave him and pressed on to the amethyst gem, shifting the survival army knife into a katana sword and quickly cut through the bot. Hunk summoned his bayard and fired multiple blasts at the training bots, taking a few of them down and glanced over to see a bot come at Kylee from the side, ramming into the more leaner looking teen. He tumbled to the ground but quickly got up and shook his head, looking around for his knife sword only to find it practical on the other side of the room.

"Kylee, you alright?" Hunk called as he opted out for bayard and sand swirled around him as his quintessence markings glowed bright yellow, spearing through a few training bots with the sand.

"I-I'm fine..." He managed to get out as the double vision started to leave and he performed a crescent moon kick back to back, sending a several blades of fire at the training bots which melted the metal but several more bots came up out of the floor shortly after and swiped it's scythe at him, Kylee backflip out of the way and landed on all fours, panting softly. He flinched when suddenly the room started to change and shift.

He felt his heart race and looked around the room wildly to see he was in that quiznaking arena yet again but no Haggar or that blue skinned person this time was watching him from above. He growled softly at the galra robots that approached him and blew fire at them, they melted on the spot and he swiftly turned around to see a rather thick looking galra soldier, he had dark purple skin and his bottom fangs stuck over his top lip. Kylee snarled and bared his fangs, the guard appeared scared.

Hunk swallowed nervously and stepped forward slowly as the training session ended.

"Kylee, listen to me. It's me, Hunk. Your in the training room with me at the castle of lions. Your safe. Your okay." Hunk had gotten so close by this point, just a few more inches and he could touch the smaller teen who let out of a soft growl of warning.

Kylee watched the galra guard with caution, he wasn't hurting him and his voice sounded familiar despite only hearing chunks of what the guard was telling him, he mainly focused on 'your safe' and 'your okay' but the guard could've been lying just to calm the teen in order for him not be hurt by the other's fangs or fire. Kylee gave him a warning growl and made an effort to show his fangs to have the other back off but he kept coming towards him.

Hunk gently touched his face, Kylee flinched and hissed softly which reminded the yellow paladin of his mom's cat and if the situation was one of less tension then he might've laughed. But he focused and slowly sat down in front of Kylee, careful not to move too quickly all the while still rubbing his cheek and making sure to keep his breathe calm and even. Once he noticed Kylee was following his breathing patterns, he decided to take a risk and gently pulled him into his arms, at first he was worried that the eighteen year old would attack when Kylee froze up and tensed in his arms.

Kylee was stunned when the guard suddenly hugged him and was just about to tear and claw at his armor when he breathed in a certain scent. It smelled like maple and vanilla with hints of butter, honey and sugar. It smelled like Hunk, it smelled like warmth and comfort and Kylee was certain that in another life he would've fallen in love with this scent the way had with Keith's and Lance's scents. Kylee breathed in the yellow paladin's scent and let it ground him while he focused on calming his heartbeat and he eventually found himself in Hunk's arms and on the training room floor.

"H-Hunk, did I...?" He whimpered, afraid of the answer to his unasked question. Hunk held him tighter.

"No, it's okay, I'm okay. You didn't hurt me." Kylee buried himself further into Hunk, despite the paladin armor in the way and as Hunk watched him and knew that the purple skinned teen could easily toss him across the room despite his body frame saying otherwise, the yellow paladin felt the same protectiveness flare within him that he had felt with Lance.

"Hey, How about I make us all some muffins? You can help if you want." Kylee's tail swished softly side to side in thought and nodded.

" but what're muffins?" Hunk gasped loudly in mock horror.

Kylee watched the oven with fascination and his tail wagging, Hunk snickered.

"I just put them in. Come help with the dishes." He called as he turned on the water and put the items they used in the sink. Kylee pouted but turned away from the oven and went over to the sink to help Hunk clean up when the doors slide open to see Lance in his swim trunks, his skin still slightly damp from the pool as he was drying himself off with the towel.

"Hey, ocean eyes. How was the pool?" Lance smiled softly at the nickname while he took notice of the items in the oven.

"Pretty good although I prefer the ocean water rather then pool water. What're you guys making?"

"Muffins and Kylee gets to be the first to taste one. He didn't even know what a muffin was."

"Well, yea, Hunk. They've been in space this whole time. Anyway, how'd training go?" Kylee ears tilted down slightly.

"I uh, I had an episode...but Hunk pulled me out." He replied, looking at the yellow paladin and the two shared a small smile. Lance nodded softly with a small smile of his own. Eventually everyone had muffins which Kylee took pride in as they went back for seconds but he felt a little worn out from training and said he was going to go take a nap as he headed to the room he shared with Keith and Lance.

Kylee was back in the auction room and dressed up in skimpy clothes, the others in the room were nothing more then black outlines, only Sendak had color and detail, his eyes locked on the galra commander who suddenly rushed forward, shattering through the glass and pinned him against the wall by his throat and his eyes widened as panic set in to find that his enhanced strength nor his fire/lava quintessence magic wasn't working.

"Remember this, you are weapon. A tool for the empire,nothing more" He heard the galra commander speak but his mouth didn't move, the white haired teen blinked and suddenly the commander was gone and the setting of the auction room had disappeared. He was in the training room and he was watching himself, there was heavy damage done to the room. This version of him had been poisoned with dark quintessence and acted like nothing more then a wild animal, snarling and baring his fangs as he stepped forward on all fours with his tail flicking sharply as wisps of fire left his mouth with each breathe.

"Kylee, please...s-stop...I-it's me..." Kylee felt panic and fear hit him hard as he swiftly turned around to see Pidge backing away from this version of himself, she was scared and bleeding but kept trying to reason with him, tears were down her face, her paladin armor was heavily cracked and damaged, her helmet was in shattered pieces near by.

"P-Pidge..." Tears formed and fell from his face but flinched as she suddenly screamed in fear, he swiftly turned around to see the wild version of him lunge for her, claws and fangs bared and he moved without a second hesitation, placing himself between her and the other version of himself. But instead of being attacked, this version of him turned into black goo and fell on to his skin, seeping into his body and he felt as if something was crawling around inside him. He screamed in pain as he felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside as thick black veins crawled over his skin and turned his red markings black.

Kylee jolted awake and quickly went to the bathroom, emptying his stomach into the toilet. He clung to the bowl as tears dripped down his face while he panted heavily. He pulled away and laid back against the cool tile wall, feeling his throat tighten as he wiped his mouth and started to sob as he slowly started to tremble and shake.

Lance felt an uneasiness settle within him as he finished his target practice with his gun, he felt a cooling sensation move through him followed by a worried hum in his head.

"Blue? What is it?" He saw the image of the red lion, the blue paladin frowned in confusion.

"Something's wrong with red?" He heard a soft growl as if she were saying no.

"Then...you mean red told you something's wrong with someone else? Who is it, Blue? Keith?" Blue gave another soft growl to indicate that his guess was wrong and Lance quickly left the training room to the room he shared with the red and purple paladin to find Keith leaning against the bathroom door, he glanced over at Lance with soft sad eyes.

"I guess red told blue that something's wrong with Kylee." Lance nodded softly, frowning as his eyes filled with concern.

"I tried to get him to open up but he wouldn't..." Keith replied softly as he pulled away from the door slightly.

"Go away, just get a cruiser pod ready so I can leave..." the two flinched at the other's request as well as how clogged up he sounded as if he'd been crying in the bathroom for hours.

"Kitten, why? What happened?" The blue paladin asked in a gentle tone, waiting for answer. After a few minutes and some sniffling, Kylee answered.

"You'll be afraid of me if I tell you."

"No we won't. We promise, just please open the door." Keith pleaded, he heard a shaky sigh from the other side of the door then a soft click and the door opened. The red and blue paladin came in and sat on the floor, hugging the white haired teen who's eyes were puffy from crying so much for so long.

"Why do you think you need to leave? Did Kolivan call and say you had to?" Keith asked in a gentle tone, Kylee shook his head no then with a shaky breathe he explained his nightmare to the two. After his lengthy tale, Keith nuzzled Kylee who purred softly in appreciation but tensed slightly when Lance's hand made its way up Kylee's shirt.

"It's okay, Tiger. I...I just wanted to check out your scar from when Allura took out that black goo..." He reassured and gave internal sigh of relief when the other teen relaxed, he glanced down and feel ice in the pit of his stomach as he looked to see that the faded black lightning pattern on his slightly defined four pack had in fact suddenly gotten quite bigger then the last time he saw it.

"S-scars...scars aren't supposed to grow..."Lance thought to himself as he swallowed heavily


	16. Chapter 16

( Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-16 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

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Kylee felt a sense of dread as he picked up the sharp scent of Lance's fear. He looked down and saw the faded black lighting like pattern on his skin and felt as if everything was moving too fast and tilting, he flinched slightly when he felt hands gently grab his face and he was caught in ruby red eyes but the pupils were circular rather then slitted like his own.

"Ky, sweetheart, you gotta calm down. Your having a panic attack. Just...just focus on mine and Lance's voices okay? Breathe with us, match our breathing, okay? Can you do that for me?" Keith spoke in a gentle tone, Kylee nodded and breathed along with the red and blue paladin until he evened out and managed to calm back down.

" good job, Lee. Now, we'll just go see Allura and she'll help us figure this-" Suddenly alarms went blared, cutting off the Cuban. The three went to the observation deck where the others were already there.

"Coran, what's going on?" Keith asked, Coran pulled up several images.

"It's a distress signal from the planet Adrastos. It's a desert like planet with royal blue sand, the planet has one sun and two moons. One deca-phoebe for the planet is three hundred seventy five Quintants. The beings that live there look human in appearance but have gems on their chests in a variety of shapes and colors." As Coran was explaining images of white pumpkins scattered among the sand, the buildings appeared to be made of white marble with silver shingle roofs. A few other images showed a couple of human looking people with gems on their chest, forehead, stomach or hand.

"A lot of the gem stones look like shape of playing card symbols. Like that one, that looks like a red spade on that girl's stomach." Pidge pointed out as they all looked at the images on screen, when a small ping sound was heard and Coran pressed a button and up came a video feed of a man with light brown skin and jet black hair, he had a blue gem in the of a club on his chest and appeared to be in his late twenties.

" oh thank Niari..." He replied and heaved a sigh of relief. "I was worried I wouldn't be able to get a signal through with the galra ships taking out most of our communication towers."

" Hello, This is Princess Allura. This is the castle of lions and base for Voltron, what do you mean by that? The galra are there? On your planet?" The man nodded.

"Yes. I'm King Aelus, the Galra showed up several Quintants ago. My soldiers have been keeping them at bay from the main cities but they're spread too thin so the villages and small towns are suffering greatly..."

"We understand. The paladins of Voltron will arrive at your planet shortly, King Aelus."

"Thank you, Princess." The communication then shut off and Allura turned to the others.

"Paladins, suit up and get to your lions." The team nodded and Shiro, Hunk and Pidge headed out. Lance and Keith hesitated for a moment, the two sharing a look before looking at Kylee.

"Allura, Kylee's-" Kylee quickly cut him off, tail flicking sharply with his ears tilted down slightly.

" I'll suit up, I'm fine."

" Ky..."

"I said I'm fine, Keith. Saving the civilians on that planet is more of a priority."

"Okay, Tiger. Jeez, calm down." Lance replied gently, Kylee looked at the floor and mumbled an apology then left. Allura gave the two a questioning look but Lance merely shook his head.

"We'll tell you later. Come on Keith. " The two then left and suited up.

The castle was protected by a barrier which opened up slightly to allow the lions to come in. Once parked on the royal blue sand, the team got out and the castle came into better view as they walked closer to it. It was made of polished white marble with gold accents and polished onyx shingle tiles with fourteen strong, round towers that formed a protective wall on two sides of the castle were connected by strengthened, firm walls made of polished white marble.

"Whoa..." Lance looked around in amazement

"Hopefully this planet's ruler and it's subjects wont treat me like the Dubearns did..." Kylee mumbled to himself as he ears tilted down in frustration, relaxing slightly when he felt a hand intertwine with his own and glanced up to see Keith who smiled gently at him.

"I'm sorry I got frustrated and took it out on you..." He spoke softly and nuzzled against the raven haired teen who purred in response at the affection.

"It's okay, Ky, I understand." Eventually the team made it to the throne room where the king was pacing back and forth mumbling to himself until he caught the paladins coming in out of the corner of his eye.

"Paladins! Thank Niari, your here! Hm? Who's the one in purple? I thought Voltron only had five lions...well, no matter. Come this way." The King took them to a room and on the large white marble table, he pressed his hand on the table and a blue light underneath scanned his hand then a blue holographic map appeared on the table showing the castle in the center with large cities closer to it with villages and towns scattered throughout and on the villages and towns were several dark red dots.

"The dots present the galra that have been spotted, I've also received word from the inside that a base as been set up a town about several Vargas from the castle." The king explained, Shiro looked at the map, his brow furrowed in thought as he came up with a plan.

"Okay, so, Kylee will go with Pidge, Lance and Hunk. Pidge'll use the green lion's cloaking ability to sneak in and gain control of the base, while Keith and I will use the red and black lion to gain the upper hand with the other towns and villages." Everyone nodded and headed to their designated lions, once the green lion landed near the base and the group snuck inside when Kylee suddenly sniffed the air, Hunk raised an eyebrow.

"Uhh, Kylee, buddy...whatcha doin?" Hunk asked as they made their way down the hall after taking out the few galra patrol bots.

"I smell someone, they kinda have a scent similar to Pidge..." Eagerness filled Pidge but focused.

"I'll check it out as soon as we take control of the base." She thought as she walked along, Kylee watched her and walked past her moving farther up ahead, feeling fear dig into him as flashes of his nightmare came up in his head with pidge's pleading in his ears.

"Kitten...you okay?" Lance asked gently, taking notice that the other was trembling. Kylee swallowed and nodded but didn't answer and kept moving. When he heard a noise, his ear turned slightly towards the sound and a few moments later the three paladins watched as he dodged plasma blasts and rushed forward, hearing the groans of soldiers as they were knocked out.

"Guys, this way. " Kylee called and they followed, stopping in front of a door. He placed his hand on the scanner, the doors opened and the teen flinched when he saw a commander standing at a computer and typing away. Kylee and the others got ready to attack when the teen picked up a familiar smell, he relaxed.

"Rigel? Your here?" He said while the other appeared to be downloading something on to a flash drive.

"Yes. But Commander Trigon is here as well, I couldn't simply order everyone to stop. My cover could be blown if I tried. However, I'll meet up with you all in several vargas. Get to my office. Once at the door type in the code 3853. That'll get you inside, not even Commander Trigon can get in. Head down this hall and make two rights then it's the fifth door on the left." He replied as he headed out. Kylee and others eventually made it to Rigel's office, Pidge sat at the desk when a thought popped into her head.

" So you said you smelled someone like me? What do I smell like?" Kylee thought for a moment as he inhaled then spoke up.

"Lilac blossoms, bamboo and fern trees. This other person smell like bamboo, lotus flower, fern and cedar trees. " Pidge nodded softly and as moments went by, Kylee got up impatiently and took off his helmet, rummaging around able to find a discarded Druid mask and cloak. He tossed those on the table and took off his armor, throwing on the cloak and slipped on the mask.

"Uh, Kylee? What're you doing? I'm pretty sure Rigel told us to wait here."

"I mean technically he didn't but it was implied " Pidge added on to Hunk's statement.

"I'm going to go see what's taking Rigel so long" Kylee replied as he headed towards the door.

"Tiger, wait, let's think up a plan before you just-and he's gone. Maybe it's a galra thing to be this stubborn or it's just those with red quintessence. "

* * *

Kylee moved through the base with quiet elegance, slipping off his Druid mask ever so slightly when he spotted a galra commander with jet black hair and wearing silver hoop earrings.

"Rigel, What was the hold up?"

" I was able to find out that Haggar has been messing with dark quintessence more frequently, I overheard something about a portal. I'll inform Kolivan as soon as I'm able." Kylee nodded and slipped the mask back into place and went on his way, making sure to keep his tail hidden as he went down the halls, slipping into rooms and gathering files that might be use to the blade or Voltron via download. He was leaving the last room and was headed back in the direction of Rigel's office when he passed by a Druid in the hall who stopped when they noticed him.

Kylee tensed ever so slightly when the druid turned looked at him and for a moment he felt his cover was blown.

"You there, young Druid. What is your name?"

" Orin" he replied, coming up with the name on the spot as he relaxed ever so slightly.

"Orin, come with me. You seem capable of doing this simple task. Change the quintessence bags while I go get more. "Kylee swallowed and followed the Druid to a room where a group of druids performing magic on a human teen. He had robotic legs attached to his body at the hip, he was apparently unconscious as they injected him with quintessence and green markings appeared on his skin although he showed no signs of pain or was even aware what was being done to him, something about the teen seemed familiar to Kylee, he breathed in slightly and took in the scent of bamboo, lotus flower, fern and cedar trees.

"So this person must be related to Pidge in some way...a cousin? Brother?" He thought to himself as he numbly changed the bags and replaced them with new ones but flinched when he glanced down again and saw Lance strapped there, bruised and unconscious with needles digging into his skin, his breath hitched and he stepped back slightly accidentally bumping into the taller Druid just as he was about to leave the room, the others looked up at him but didn't stop performing their magic.

"Is there a problem, Orin?" Kylee tried to calm his heart and glance over back at the body on the table to see it wasn't Lance but the human teen.

"Uh, no, sir. I've just never seen a human before, it's quite startling."

"Yes, it's very rare to have them this far out in the galaxy. We found him with a small resistance group; he was far stronger than the other experiments we used. Now, do as you have been instructed." Kylee nodded ever so slightly.

"Yes, sir." He replied quickly and started working, despite the anxiety that was starting to creep it's way into him. Halfway through most of bags by now, he glanced over at the teen again to see it was himself. He trembled and felt heat rise to his hands as he kept staring with wide eyes behind the mask, he couldn't seem to breathe and tore off the mask and yet still couldn't get any air. He felt heat rush through him as he blacked out.

"Ky...lee...Kylee!" He heard a voice, calling him, but it was muffled, like he was underwater. He glanced over to see the other disguised blade member, Rigel. The older galra's Commander uniform was heavily damaged with claw marks and cracks, he also had a bleeding gash across his face. Kylee looked around him and scattered everywhere were either piles of ash and half melted armor or claw marks on dead bodies or sentry bots. He looked his hands and his nose wrinkled at the metallic coppery scent of the blood and felt tears form.

"Kylee, no. You can't lose it here, you have to get to the paladins...grab the human if you want but you have to leave. Commander Trigon will be coming soon."

"B-but what about you?"

"I'll take off my armor and put it over one of the piles of ash, the empire will believe I died. Now grab the human and leave." Kylee nodded and quickly went back into the room and hoisted the teen on to his back, keeping his arms underneath the teen's robotic legs. He looked back at Rigel.

"I'll be fine, cub. Go. "Kylee dashed off and made it into Rigel's office. Pidge's eyes widened at the sight before her.

"M-Matt..." Her voice was shaky with emotion as tears formed in her eyes.

"P-Pidge, w-we have to leave...I-I screwed up our side of the mission." Kylee managed to get out as he swallowed his tears; he handed the teen on his back to hunk and took off the Druid cloak and mask, quickly putting his armor back on.

"What do you mean you screwed up our side of the mission?" Hunk asked as he gently shifted Matt's body on his back, Lance watched the other carefully; he went over to gently take his hand but was surprised when Kylee quickly pulled his hand as if he had been shocked.

"Kitten...?" Kylee looked away and tears pricked his eyes.

"Let's just hurry and meet up with the others." He mumbled, after dodging plasma blasts they all managed to get into the green lion, Kylee sat on the floor nearby and rested his forehead on his knees.

"H-holy shit...Matt's actually here..." Pidge thought to herself as she moved the green lion along and turned on the communication link.

"Shiro, Keith, its Pidge. What do we do now? We couldn't get control of the base."

Kylee drowned out the conversation as negative thoughts swirled in his head.

"It's my fault...I screwed up the mission because of a stupid panic attack, I alerted the enemy...I don't deserve to be here..." Kylee thought and flinched when he felt a pair of hands gently pull his face up from his knees; Lance's blue eyes were filled with concern.

"Kylee...talk to me." The white haired teen broke under that soft pleading tone and tears quickly formed and fell down his face.

"I had a panic attack a-and I blacked out, I apparently killed several guards m-maybe Druids too I-" He flinched slightly when Lance gently kissed him on the mouth and rubbing away his tears with his thumb.

"Kitten, shh. Calm down, your starting to hyperventilate." Kylee gave a shaky nod and once he got a grip on himself he spoke again.

"I hurt Rigel...but anyway...he found out that Haggar has been messing with dark quintessence magic, he said there was something about a portal..." Lance nodded softly; he could tell the purple paladin was exhausted.

"Get some rest, Lee. I'll wake you up once we meet up with Shiro and Keith." Kylee nodded and slowly fell asleep.

"You call yourself a member of the blade? Such a disgrace, you don't deserve to have your father's blade." Kolivan growled as he reached out, snatching the blade from its belt loop holster, Kylee reached out to try and grab it.

"Leader, please, it's all I have left of my dad! Please, I can prove I earned to keep it, please don't-!" The white haired teen's eyes widened as the galra leader gripped the blade tighter and tighter until it shattered in a burst of light purple sparkling light, tears formed as he backed away and vision blurred, he blinked away the tears as he bumped into someone. Kylee swiftly turned around to see Shiro glaring at him, he looked around to see the other paladins as well as the princess and her advisor there, all of them glaring at him.

"We should have never trusted you." Allura said bitterly

"You don't deserve the armor, you didn't earn it." Coran added

"do you even really belong here? I mean we have five paladins and five lions" chimed in Pidge

"Your just a spare, a stand in." Shiro retorted

"The red lion probably chose you because it felt sorry for you." Hunk added in. Kylee trembled and covered his ears at their hash words that ran through him like daggers, he glanced at Lance and Keith, completely terrified of what their responses would be.

"I can't believe I thought I was in love with you, how can I love someone who could kill me so easily all because of some stress?" Lance spoke in snarky venomous tone, a cold cocky grin on his face and Kylee felt shell shocked as he dropped to his knees and tears streamed down his face but he clung on to the thin strand of hope as Keith slowly walked towards him and gently touched his face, the white haired teen gave a shaky purr but flinched sharply when Keith suddenly grabbed his purple paladin armor.

" A Galra Empire weapon shouldn't wear this armor, it's for paladins and your no paladin." The red paladin spoke coldly as he have a sharp tug and Kylee's paladin suit cracked and shattered like fine china and Kylee found himself falling endlessly until he landed in black goo with a splash, feeling as if something was trying to drag him down into it but he kept struggling to break free until his muscles gave out and the black goo slowly started to drag him under.

Kylee jolted awake with a gasp, panting heavily, small wisps of fire left his mouth as his eyes darted around wildly and he realized he was in a elegant bedroom.

"W-where...where am I?" He thought to himself as he sniffed out any familiar scents, his anxiety calmed when he smelled Hunk and Lance nearby.

"O-Ocean eyes?" He called and moment later, Lance came into the room with concern in his eyes.

"Hey Tiger...how are you? I tried to wake you up earlier but you wouldn't, Keith and I were really worried..." Kylee whimpered softly and Lance climbed into bed next to him, the slightly shorter teen clung to the Cuban boy and by the time he was finished with the retelling of his night terror, he was practically in tears again.

"Shh, it's okay, Kitten. Let me see the mark." Kylee reluctantly did as the blue paladin asked by moving away slightly and lifting up his shirt, Lance gasped softly. The black markings had gotten bigger and darker in color, the pattern had made its way halfway across his abdomen and was moving up towards his chest. Lance frowned and reached for his handheld communication device and began typing on the holographic screen.

"How long was I out for?"

"A few days...we managed to drive the galra off the planet and the king's throwing a party in our honor." Lance replied, Kylee looked away and the blue paladin caught the glint of negative emotions in his eyes, clearly remembering what the night terror versions of the paladins said.

"Lee, no...Kitten, don't think any of that stuff for a second." Lance held Kylee's face with both of his hands, firm yet gentle as he stared into those cat like ruby red eyes.

" Kylee...I love you, I have for a long time. I want to be your family. I'm sure Keith feels the same way I do. Earth can be your home...or anywhere you want to go if you didn't feel happy living there. i'd follow you anywhere across the universe" Kylee felt slightly stunned by this proclamation and heat rushed to his face as he blushed slightly.

"You really mean that?"

"With every single drop of my quintessence" the Cuban boy replied then leaned in while gently grabbing a handful of the other's long white slightly curly locks and the two of their mouths met. Kylee's were soft, reminding the blue paladin of rose petals and Lance breathed in and pressed further, waiting for a response. It was only a second, with Kylee frozen in surprise, and then he responded, his mouth returning the pressure and his tongue flitting out cautiously. Lance parted his lips and let the other's tongue all the way in, and barely stifled a moan at the sweet taste. This continued on for quite sometime until the two pulled away for much needed air but Lance kept his hand to the back of the half galra teen's neck, keeping him close as he started into his ruby red colored eyes.

"Your absolutely beautiful, Tiger." He spoke softly then glanced down at his communication device when it made a small ping to indicate he had a message, he grabbed it and looked it over.

"Allura's coming here soon. She's speaking with the king right now though." Kylee nodded and climbed out of bed, heading towards the bathroom when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head but he tried to ignore it as he headed into the bathroom and took a shower but the feeling only intensified through out the shower and Kylee could hardly think straight as he threw on a pair of white lounge pants and shirt that Lance tossed on to the toilet seat earlier when he grunted in pain as he held his head then it rose to a strangled cry of pain as he fell to his knees and coughed up flecks of black liquid, his yellow sclera had black at the edges and was very slowly starting to creep up despite Kylee clearly struggling to remain in control, Lance quickly came into the bathroom and went over to him.

"Kylee, what's wrong?!" Lance asked, voice filled with concern and panic but Kylee threw up a hand up at him just as the Cuban boy tried to get knee level with him.

"No, please don't come near me...I-it's...I..I can feel something in my head, something in my quintessence...:" He managed to get out, his tightened expression showing how much pain he was in.

"I'll go get Allura!" Lance replied and he quickly left the room, Kylee scraped his claws against the floor as he panted through the pain as the black veins started to crawl up farther and farther up his body, he hacked and cough up black liquid in large amounts this time as his vision started to blur and he made a strangled cry as a tremor of pain tore through his body. The blur vision stopped but when his eyes refocused he was in his quintessence realm and waist deep in black goo, he grunted and struggled to get out. After a few moments he managed to get out only to find that his ankles were chained with black ankle cuffs, he gave a weakened snarl of anger and made a reach for them but more chains with black cuffs shot out and secured themselves around his wrists and neck, dragging him down into the black goo and engulfing him completely.

Lance panted as he finally find Allura along with the King and the other paladins, concern and stress ate away at him and he opened his mouth to explain but he stiffened when an animalistic roar rang out through the castle, shaking the pink diamond chandelier in the room.


	17. Chapter 17

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-17 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

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"Uhh, What was that?" Hunk asked nervously, Lance swallowed as he and the others felt heat pour into the room, they turned around to see Kylee with his red markings now black as were his sclera. Black veins ran along his skin, wisps of fire left his mouth as he snarled with feral eyes.

They all flinched when Kylee vanished, leaving scorch marks where he once stood and suddenly reappeared in front of Shiro who barely had time to react when he was grabbed by his altean robot arm and was roughly tossed across the room and into the wall, the force of the impact created a small creator in the wall and shattered his robotic limb, the black paladin's suit was cracked and some pieces fell off as well and he slowly fell away from the wall and on to the floor out cold. The paladins looked at their leader with wide eyes and slowly turned back to the white haired teen who was now giving off a black aura outlined in red.

"Shit, what do we do?" Keith thought in a panic, suddenly Kylee rushed towards him and Keith moved out of the way just in time as he felt heat pulse through him and a roar deep within, suddenly he felt a burst of power and he started to give off a red aura that resembled a lion.

"Red? Are you doing this? "The red paladin's teen was a loud purr in response, he smiled.

"Let's save Kylee then. You ready?" He grinned widely when he heard another roar deep within him as if she were saying yes and he rushed towards the dark quintessence possessed Kylee who was headed towards Pidge and tackled him out of the way, the two went through two walls and ended up in a grand ball room. Keith was surprised that being forced through two walls of solid marble didn't even hurt at all but he quickly focused at the task at hand, watching as this version of Kylee watched him like an wild cat against an enemy, trying figure out when he would strike next. Keith merely shifted his feet and Kylee rushed forward, growling in feral anger but just as he got close to Keith he vanished as the then reappeared behind him and slammed him into the ground, the red paladin flinched when the other's tail wrapped around him and threw him into a wall, Keith shook off the impact and flinched when the other breathed fire at him which he manipulated and threw back at the possessed Kylee, who ran through the fire and towards the red paladin who moved out of the way slightly and grabbed his arm then turned around in a swift motion, throwing the other half breed over his shoulder and to the ground, the impact leaving a small creator in flooring.

Dark quintessence Kylee was momentarily stunned which gave Keith a moment to catch his breathe but then in that moment it to let Keith catch his breathe this dark version of Kylee was up and rushed towards him, punching him in the gut which sent Keith flying through three more rooms, finally stopping in what appeared a library. Keith groaned as he pulled himself away from the impacted library wall when dark quintessence Kylee appeared in front of him and grabbed him by the throat and but suddenly let go and was writhing in agony as he started to back away as patches of ice formed on his skin until his body slowly turned into a solid ice statue. Keith started with wide eyes and reached out with trembling hands, then shifted his attention to Lance who felt to his knees and tears flowed down his face, loosely holding a white and blue trident.

"I...I didn't want to, Keith...h-he..it...that thing inside Kylee was going to kill you..." Lance sobbed out as the trident shifted to the bayards standard form, the red lion shaped aura slowly faded away from Keith's body as tears formed in his eyes.

Kylee was surrounded by nothing but darkness and felt uncomfortably hot as it felt like he was in mud when suddenly a cooling sensation gently washed over him and the teen purred softly as the image of Lance appeared in his head and suddenly the black chains and shackles on his skin frosted over and crumbled, the black goo slowly started to turn into lava.

Kylee managed to pull himself out of the black goo that was mostly lava at this point and once he reached the surface he looked down to see a patch of black on his glowing red body. He snarled in anger at it and shoved his hands deep within his own chest and pulled out the black goo which took his form but it looked like he was covered in black goo and had horns and iris less glowing yellow eyes. the black goo version of Kylee dodged fire blasts that were thrown at it and was about to leave through a black portal it had created. He quickly threw his fist forward and a flow of lava quickly enveloped the portal.

"Your not leaving until I tell you." He snarled as he bared his fangs, the black goo version of him flinched as the small amount of black goo that were still stuck to Kylee burned off as he walked towards it, dodging any attacks or using walls of lava to block the blasts of black energy.

"You make me hurt my friends, no, my family and you think you walk out? I don't think so. " While he spoke, a massive tigress made of lava appeared behind him, growling down at the black goo version of Kylee.

"My name is Kylee, child of Nalu and Evangeline and your banished from my realm!" the lava tigress roared in response, fire bursting from its mouth, turning goo Kylee into a pile of ash. Once sure that the creature was gone, Kylee turned around to the molten feline but flinched slightly to see it wasn't the red lion at all.

"W-who...who are you?" He asked but the tigress simply gave him a gentle lick on the face before laying down and curling up, fell asleep as a tsunami rushed over everything and the teen embraced the clear cool water, swimming about and taking in the sea life. Once they came up for air, the sky was clear and blue with sun shining. Kylee looked back to see that the lava tigress had turned into his new island, the white sand sparkling in the sun as the volcano was dormant and with a content sigh and a grin, he was pushed up towards the shore by the waves and fell asleep on the sand.

Keith and Lance stared at the ice statue of Kylee solemnly when it suddenly started to glow red at the center then it spread through out the ice which caused it to slowly melt off, revealing Kylee back to normal but the red markings on his forehead as well as face changed and rather then purple like the rest of his skin his tail was red. Kylee stumbled and started to fall but the two paladins quickly caught him and held him fiercely.

"Lance...Keith.."

"está bien, gatito...go to sleep..." the blue paladin whispered as tears of relief filled his eyes, he heard the other gave a weak purr then felt him slowly relax. Several hours later, the outcome of this whole ordeal was a heavily damaged castle and the black paladin had been placed in a coma. Keith was clearly upset as was everyone else but were at least grateful that impact didn't kill the twenty five year old. Several days went by and soon the repairs were made to the castle, red paladin in sat in a chair near by in one of the spare rooms that had been left untouched by the brawl he had with dark quintessence Kylee while Allura was apparently checking Kylee's quintessence to make sure not even a droplet was left by the indication of the glowing pink scales on her cheeks when her communication device rang, sighing softly she stopped what she was doing and answered it.

"Allura, What's happened?" Keith's ears picked up the familiar regal tone.

"Is that Lotor? When did you get his number?" Allura flinched, blushing bright red with embarrassment.

"Not now" she mouthed at him then turned back towards the phone.

"Hello, Lotor." Keith watched as she left the room to carry on the conversation, he sighed and got up from his hair and gently ran his hair through the purple paladin's hair who purred softly and slowly woke up just as Lance walked into the room.

"Lance..? Keith..? What...what happened?" The two glanced at each other and then retold the events that happened several days ago. Kylee sat there in shock as his trembling claws gripped the blankets.

"I put...I put Shiro in a coma...?" He spoke in a hushed whisper, Keith and Lance flinched and quickly comforted the teen.

"Kitten, no, that wasn't you. It was that thing possessing you. " Lance spoke gently, Kylee threw himself into the blue paladin's arms who held him.

"Where...where is he?"

"He's in a healing pod on the ship, there isn't any...indication of when he'll wake up." Kylee whimpered at Keith's words, but purred softly when the red paladin combed his hair with his fingers.

"What about Voltron? Without the black lion..." Keith nodded softly

"Each of us have been trying to wake up black but they won't respond to anyone so far. " he went on further to explain, Kylee nodded softly.

" Mullet's abit reluctant to try. But I think he'd make a great leader." Keith blushed at the blue paladin's statement, his expression turning serious for a moment.

"You don't know that for sure. I mean...I'm the hot head, the loner...how can I lead Voltron?"

"You've got me and Kylee to help you out, Keith. No worries." Lance replied, Kylee purred in agreement and gave the korean boy a kiss on the mouth while Lance gave him a kiss on the forehead. Keith blushed and smiled softly.

"Thanks guys."

Kylee sat with the others on the hanger floor at the castle of lions, Keith went inside the black several minutes ago but it didn't light up or anything. Keith came out with a mixture of relief and sadness, the red paladin was happy he wasn't chosen but was sorry that Keith wasn't accepted by the black lion like Shiro wanted. Kylee went over and nuzzled him in reassurance to which Keith purred back in appreciation.

"Okay so far the black lion hasn't accepted Allura, me, hunk, Lance and now Keith. Only person left is Kylee." Kylee flinched at the mention of his name and backed away slightly

"What? No, I-I can't...I shouldn't be in the black lion's chair, not after what happened...I'm the reason we need to be doing this in the first place, i'm the one who put Shiro in a coma" Keith glared at Kylee softly

"No your not, Ky. That wasn't you, that was the dark quintessence creature. Please, just try it okay?" Kylee whimpered softly but did as asked, feeling extremely uncomfortable as he sat there in the black lion's chair. He tightened his grip slightly on the handles as tears formed in his eyes.

" I'm so sorry, Black..."

The paladins and the princess turned when they heard the doors open seeing Lotor and Rigel coming into the room, both in their blade uniforms and Rigel sporting a face scar.

"Lotor? What're you doing here?" Lance asked

"Hello, everyone. Princess Allura told me over the communication device about the incident at the castle and I wanted to know how you all were doing."

"More or less okay considering what happened" Hunk replied with a shrug, moments later Kylee came out with eyes filled with sad relief at not being chosen by the black lion.

"Okay, it's official. The black lion clearly hates all of us." Lance said as he sat down on the hanger floor, rest his chin on top of Kylee's head, who purred at the attention and loosely wrapped his tail around the blue paladin's waist.

"Wait, what if Lotor tries? Maybe it's about quintessence compatibility, all of us don't have purple quintessence but Lotor does." Pidge said and everyone looked towards Lotor who blinked in surprise as his ears tilted down slightly

"W-What? Me?" After several minutes, the banished prince sighed

" fine. If the black lion doesn't choose me then Voltron can't be formed, no pressure.." He mumbled and headed into the black lion.

Lotor sat in the chair and focused, gripping the controls of the black lion as he shut his eyes.

"Please. I understand that you must miss Shiro dearly and that this seems too soon but you've denied the other paladins as well as Kylee and the princess. We do not have time for this, we are at war with my father. Black lion, I ask of you, please allow me to be your pilot until Shiro returns. " the prince pleaded and waited for something, anything but received only silence and with a soft sigh, he started to let go of the controls when he felt a roar resonate within him and the controls as well as inside interior lit up with purple lighting. Lotor smiled softly.

"Thank you. I will make sure of it that you don't regret your choice."

Commander Trigon snarled in fury as he went over the small amount of undamaged footage again and again, it was the young Druid with white hair and red markings on his face, he appeared to in some sort of frenzy, snarling and attacking anyone like a wild animal. He even managed to kill Commander Rigel apparently given the pile of ash and damaged armor found in the hall.

"You ruined my base, attacked my crew. I will find you, make no mistake of that." He growled as he glared daggers at the image.


	18. Chapter 18

(Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Voltron because believe me my series would be cannon if I did. Also I did not write all of this on my own, this was co-written with tumblr user: binart, Chapter 1-5 was written by them. Chapter 6-18 however was all me and I own my Voltron OC: Kylee. Side note: you can follow the tag #quintessencequestau on instagram. Feel free to make fan art)

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Kylee laid in bed, feeling somewhat disappointed that he couldn't go to the party with everyone else since the castle had finally finished being repaired, he growled softly in irritation as he headed to the bathroom to take a cold shower.

"Stupid heat..." He mumbled as he turned on the water and sighed softly as the water washed over him, wondering if the others were having fun.

"It's so quiet in the castle since everyone else is at that party, it's abit creepy being here by myself...well I mean technically I'm not here by myself since Shiro and Matt are in the pods but still..." He thought to himself as he dried off and put on some underwear then threw himself on to the bed, purring softly as he breathed in Lance's and Keith's scents that were among the blanket and pillows, he blushed slightly as his mind began to fill with lewd thoughts. He gripped the pillow in frustration and tossed it away with sigh but frowned when he heard the main castle doors slide open.

"The party's over that fast?" He asked out loud, but flinched and quickly tensed as he picked up three unfamiliar scents.

"Intruders...but how did they get pass the security system? It should only disengage for the princess or the Paladins...unless-" Kylee quickly shut down the thought of one of them being in danger since he didn't pick up any of their scents.

"So they must've hacked it...maybe they're here for Matt and Shiro?" Kylee growled in irritation as his mind raced and his tail flicked sharply then resorted to running all fours to gain more ground quickly and followed the scents until he came upon a girl abit taller then Pidge wearing a green and black galra empire body suit with green markings on her face with green hair and white feathered wings instead of normal ears, she adjusted her glasses.

"Oh, good. You came to me, I'll just tell the others then we can collect you and our other experiments and head back to the main empire base, Lady Haggar will enjoy finishing up on the three of you." Kylee snarled and bared his fangs, she stood undeterred and even cracked a smug smile.

"So It's true that the ancient galra DNA strand acts on primal instincts...your so focused on me, that you don't notice anything else." Kylee flinched as he picked up another scent, it was puzzling to him since it smell familiar yet different then he heard the sound of rushing air, moments later he grunted in pain as a force of air sent him slamming hard into the wall, creating a dent in the metal. The teen groaned, looking up and his eyes widened at the sight before him.

"S-Shiro?" Kylee shook his head as his vision cleared up more and it wasn't entirely Shiro, for starters this Shiro had no scar across the bridge of his nose like their Shiro did and this one had two robot galra arms rather then the real Shiro who originally only had one and both of the robot arms were set with pointed claws rather then regular metal fingertips and he had fangs, pointed ears and his sclera were yellow like with most galra and had a tail like he did.

" Tempest, go easy on him. Lady Haggar said we need him and the others in proper condition."

"Right, right. Sorry, just wanted to see if he was really good enough to be Haggar's favorite toy." The Shiro clone replied in his purple and black galra empire jumpsuit, glancing down at the young teen and gave a toothy grin and Kylee felt a chill run down his spine as those purple eyes seemed to glow with excitement, his tail swaying lazily and Kylee gave a weak hiss in retaliation, the white hair at the end of his own tail proofing up to show his anger.

"Where's Diamond?" The girl with green hair shrugged and opened up a map of the castle on her wrist device.

"Most likely in the kitchen. You know he loves to eat." Kylee's ears flicked when he heard faint squeaking to see the space mice watching through the air vents and silently pleaded with them to go get the others, the mice nodded and quickly scampered off.

Allura sighed softly, her feet were killing her in these heels and decided to walk back to the castle of lions with the shoes dangling by the straps in her hand, stepping into the castle when the mice suddenly ran towards her, giving panicked squeaks.

"Slow down, please. I can't understand what your saying." Allura asked, gently with concern in her eyes. The mice explained again more slowly this time and Allura eyes widened.

"There's more of those hybrid galra soldiers in castle?! " She quickly ran over and activated the alarm system to alert the other Paladins then ran off to find Kylee in order to help him anyway she would be able to.

Keith leaned against the railing, away from the noise of the party while he fidgeted in his fancy attire, a deep red suit with a black undershirt when he heard the sound of foot steps and purred softly as a familiar scent surrounded him.

"Thought I'd find you out here, mr. wall flower. I know you wanna go back to Lee but Allura said we're supposed to give some speech to the guests." Keith growled softly

"But what for? I mean the king already signed the coalition agreement so why do we have to-" Keith tensed as he picked up the scent of Lance's panic and watched as the cuban boy's eyes widened.

"Keith, something's up at the castle! Your faster then the rest of us so you go on ahead and figure out what's up." Keith raised an eyebrow and glanced back at the castle, frowning at the flashing red lights coming from the building and his mind raced with thoughts of horrible things happening to Kylee and Shiro. He flinched when he felt hands touched him and he growled sharply but relaxed when he remembered it was Lance.

"Keith, it's going to be okay." the cuban boy reassured, looking into the red paladin's eyes; the red color popping against the yellow sclera. Keith focused on Lance's scent and soft hands on his face, the yellow fading away to normal white.

"Be careful, okay?" Lance gave him a gentle peak on the mouth then stepped back slightly and Keith took off leaving a slight gust of wind behind him.

Kylee used the distraction to his advantage and pulled himself away from the metal wall, taking off towards the medic bay only to be feel something grain and course wrap around his neck, wrists and waist.

"Your pretty fast, almost didn't catch you." Kylee heard a voice speak from behind, it belonged to a male and Kylee managed to turn his head to see a well built guy, he had three yellow iris-less eyes and pale green skin with yellow markings on his face, in addition to the claws and fangs and pointed ears, he sported a black and yellow galra empire bodysuit.

"this must be the one those other two called Diamond." Kylee thought as he gritted his teeth and inhaled sharply, a ember of flame forming in his mouth then opening and quickly fired it off like a bullet from a gun, taking advantage of the sand loosening as the galra hybrid soldier dodged the blast and Kylee ran off to the medic bay only to stop and tense as he heard Tempest's voice over the intercom.

"Give it up already, it's less work for us if you just turn yourself in. Besides, we have your princess here." Kylee snarled, small whisps of fire came out between his clenched teeth but flinched when he saw a blur of red and picked up Keith's scent as he was tackled to the floor.

"K-Keith..." The white haired teen clung to the other who gently grabbed his face and looked him over, his sclera had gone from white to yellow again.

"What's going on? Are you hurt? I smelled your stress." Keith asked, he gave a soft growl.

"If they hurt you or Shiro, I'll-" Kylee nuzzled him, purring softly and it cooled some of the boiling anger and protective instincts.

" I'm fine. I don't think they've gotten to the medic bay yet. But they have Allura hostage and...there's one guy, he was called Tempest by one of the other galra hybrid soldiers, Keith...he-he looks like Shiro and he's part galra" Keith's eyes widened at this information, that the witch actually cloned his brother figure but set that aside for now and focused on the task.

"I'll guard the medic bay. Go rescue Allura. Lance and the others should be here soon for back up." Kylee nodded then nuzzled against the other half galra and breathed in his scent, Keith held him tightly.

"I know this abit hypocritical for me to say but don't rush in and do anything stupid okay? Get Allura and get out, don't let them mess with your head." Kylee purred softly and reluctantly pulled away then gave the red paladin a kiss on the mouth and quickly took off.

Kylee sniffed the air as he ran down the halls of the castle, picking out the scents easily and came to a stop when he found Allura bound and unconscious with some bruising and her outfit damaged, clearly she had fought the best she could and Kylee felt a sense of pride in knowing that.

"Well, looks like you finally showed up." The white haired teen turned around to see the green and purple coded galra hybrid soldiers wearing some sort of breathing mask, they were all black and to be honest with himself, Kylee thought the masks were pretty cool since they were designed so sleekly and silver implanted on the front and sides to look like fangs. But he tossed that aside and growled softly at them.

"Okay, I did what you wanted. I'm here so leave the princess alone." The two glanced at each other then at Kylee.

" Actually, I checked in with Lady Haggar and she said to bring the princess along, so sorry, no can do." replied the green haired girl with a nonchalant shrug, Kylee snarled in fury and made a rush towards the two of them when Tempest's purple markings suddenly glowed and the white haired teen felt a wave of nausea hit him but he tried to ignore it and gritted his teeth as he raised his fist, throwing a jet of flame which bursted into size quite rapidly, the two enemy soldiers barely had time to get out of the way, the entire wall turned black from the contact of the massive fire. Kylee couldn't hold it in anymore and puked what little he ate earlier as the room started to spin and swirl but the purple paladin was positive he was standing still as he took in light shaky breathes.

"You...you...used your quintessence magic to..amplify the...oxygen in..the room..didn't you?" He managed to get out as he struggled to breathe, glaring at the Shiro look alike.

"My, my. What a smart kitty, you are~" He seemed to think this was all nothing more then a game and it angered Kylee to no end and before he could fire of another attack his vision started to blur and he felt his body shaky as everything went black.

* * *

Lance felt his lungs burn and his legs ache as he kept pushing himself to move faster in order to get to the castle of lions, the red flashing lights seemed to burn themselves into his brain and he hated it. He tossed a glance back at Hunk, Pidge Lotor and Coran who were not that far behind him and skidded to a stop then headed inside at full run again once the doors opened for him.

"I'm acting like Mullet and Tiger, rushing in without a plan. The enemy could still be here, you dumbass." Lance chided himself as he looked around wildly for any sign of life, the castle was a mess; Clearly a fight had gone on and Lance whimpered when he saw no signs of his two boyfriends or the princess.

"K-Keith!" Lance called out, his voice cracking as tears formed and he started to tremble as he inhaled sharply and called out again.

"K-Keith, K-Kylee, Please! Allura! Anyone, Answer me!" He called out again as he suddenly felt the air grow thin and no matter how much he knew he was breathing, it felt like as if his lungs were full and tried to get them to feel full but nothing worked. He started to frantically tug and pull at his suit collar despite it being loose he acted as if it was choking him as he sobbed and gasped for air. The Cuban boy flinched when he felt strong arms hold him close and secure.

"Hermano, está bien...we'll...we'll find out where they are, okay? But you need to focus on me for a moment, you need to focus on my breathing and match it. Your having a panic attack, so...por favor, Hermano. Respira por mi. Enfocarse y respirar." Lance did asked and once he got his breathing under control, he turned towards the yellow paladin and clung desperately to the other's dress suit who held him close as if this would shield Lance from the heartache he was feeling. The two went walking down the hall this time with Lotor, Coran and Pidge following behind, all five looking down each hall until Pidge tensed and ran down the hall.

"Guys, I found Keith!" She shouted and power slide to a bruised hand this was underneath large scraps of metal, the sharp claws were damaged as if they tried to claw themselves out. Pidge focused and her quintessence markings glowed neon green and the metal moved away, revealing Keith who was heavily injured. Lance gasped sharply and tears formed as he slowly made his way towards the red paladin who looked like a broken doll, his pale skin decorated with bruises and scrapes. The blue paladin gently reach out and held the others face, stroking his cheek with his thumb.

"K-Keith..." The Raven haired teen groaned softly and slowly opened his eyes, his vision slowly came into focus as he took everything in.

"Lance...? Where's...where's Ky and Allura?" The cuban boy felt his throat tighten but swallowed as he fought back the tears.

"They're fine, Mullet...you did an awesome job defending the medic bay. But don't let that go to your head, alright?" Keith gave a weak smile then passed out. Lance felt panic seize him until he saw the rise and fall of the red paladin's chest and let out a shaky sigh of relief.

" Coran, take Keith inside to the medic bay, while your there check on Shiro and Matt. Pidge and Hunk, check the security footage and see if there are any clues on exactly what happened, where they took Allura and Kylee, anything at all. Lotor, can you try and contact Rigel? See if he's heard anything about this plan that the galra hybrid soldiers had?"

"I'll do my best." The banished prince replied and walked off to the commutation center of the castle. Coran gently took Keith and walked off, while the yellow and green Paladins looked at their friend with concern.

"Lance, what're you going to do?" Pidge asked

"I'm going to my quintessence realm and talk to Blaytz. See if he has any idea on how to locate Lee and Allura."

Kylee jolted awake with a sharp gasp, quickly looking around as his senses managed to catch up with him to realize he was in a holding cell with a meager bed and quintessence suppression anklets as well as a collar and wrist cuffs. He growled softly but tensed when he heard footsteps and picked up the scent of the Shiro look alike.

"So, how's our guest feeling this varga? " Kylee bared his fangs and growled in reply, Tempest merely chuckled in response.

" such fire in your eyes even when your heat. I'm in impressed, your alpha qualities are strong. Normally, those who go through a heat are more submissive and give it up to anyone just cool down." Kylee said nothing for a moment then gave a frustrated sigh.

"Just why the quiznak are you here? What'd the green one call you? Tempest?" The other nodded.

"I'm here to bring your food, can't have Lady Haggar's toy starve on us. " Tempest explained then slide in a food tray through a slot in the door and after staring at it and being reassured several times it wasn't poisoned or anything, Kylee ate, trying to ignore the amethyst colored eyes that watched him. Once he was done eating, he glanced over at the bed and reluctantly sat down on it, since it was a lot better then the hard cold metal floor.

" I got you the bed by the way. I told Lady Haggar about your...condition at the moment and she had one of the bots put it in here. Well, I gotta go. See you later, kitty." Kylee frowned softly

" wait, why are you being nice?"

"Well, three reasons. Reason one is your Lady Haggar's favorite toy at the moment. Reason two is...your scent...I have ancient galra in me as well, given the fact I have a tail like so your heat scent messing with me although I'm trying to ignore it for the sake of orders. Reason three is...I can't tell you. Goodbye, kitty." Tempest then left Kylee to himself who laid down in bed and tried his best to sleep.

Lance went into his room, pacing back and forth in frustration, raking a hand through his hair; eventually storming out after changing into more comfortable clothes and headed to the hanger where the lions were kept. The blue paladin sighed as he sat down in front of his lion and focused on his breathing until he felt as if he was being submerged in water then opened his eyes to find himself in his quintessence realm. He walked around, occasionally glancing down at the tropical fish and hammerheads that lazily swam underneath.

"Blaytz! Please, I need your help!" The Cuban boy called out and turned around when he heard water splashing behind him to see the former blue paladin looking at him with concern, he flinched when the cuban boy rushed towards him and clung to him as tears formed and fell within minutes.

"Hey, Hey...Lance, what happened? What's wrong?" Blaytz asked, gently as he looked down at him.

"Blaytz, these galra soldiers...they got into into the castle. They hurt Keith and they took Kylee, Allura too! I-I don't know what to do! I-I don't know how to find them or any idea where to look!" Lance explained as he started to sob, the clouds in his realm started to turn dark and the waves churned slightly.

" Lance, it's okay. I'll teach you how to find them. But you got to calm down okay?" Lance slowly calmed down and collected himself, the clouds turned back to white and the sea calmed.

"Okay, so how do I find them?" Lance asked as the two sat down across from one another

"Those with blue quintessence, and red quintessence, our magic is amplified by our emotions and connections by those in our lives. I understand that you love Kylee very deeply." Lance blushed at the older one's statement who merely smiled in good nature then turned serious once more.

" think of a red door, Lance. Imagine a picture of Kylee on the front of it." Lance closed his eyes and focused then when he opened his eyes again just a few feet away was a deep red door with a picture Kylee on the front in a silver picture frame. Lance quickly got up and tried the door but it wouldn't open, he made a noise of worry.

"Blaytz, why won't it open? Is something wrong with Lee? Could he be hurt or-" the air turned cold as fear settled in, patches of ice started to form on the water but Blaytz snapped him out of it quickly.

" no, that doesn't necessarily mean that. He probably doesn't know it's you, Lance. Try reaching out to him through the door, put your hands on it and try to connect with him." Lance focused himself and closed his eyes, gently placing his hands on the door, a small portion of it glowed blue.

"Kitten, Come on. It's me."

Kylee laid on the sand of his island with a heavy sigh when he felt a strange tingling sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"Hm?" He saw out of the corner of his eye, a little off shore in the water was a light blue door with a picture of Lance in a frame made of coral branches and pearls. The white haired teen's eyes widened slightly as he got to his feet as quickly as could and headed out to the door.

"Ocean Eyes!" He gripped the handle and the threw open the door and tears formed when he saw nothing but a black void.

"L-Lance..." Seconds later, there was a burst of blue light and suddenly Lance was there glowing blue and standing on top of ocean water, slightly stunned but a grin quickly formed on his face as he flung himself at the glowing red teen who held him tightly.

"Kitten!" Kylee purred loudly and nuzzled him, Lance chuckled softly and covered his face in kisses shortly after. The two sat on the sand and began talking.

"Lee, do you have any idea where you are? Where're they're taking you? Is Allura with you?" Kylee frowned softly in deep thought, his tail lazily wrapped around Lance's wrist.

"As far as I know I'm on a galra cruiser and I'm being taken to Haggar, where ever she is and Allura's not with me but she must be somewhere close by, I was able to pick up her scent when I woke up. But I can't get out, they put quintessence suppression anklets, cuffs and a collar on me so i can't use my fire magic or my strength and my speed. But I got a bed cause of Tempest is taking my condition into consideration I guess? But that's neither here nor there. What about you? "

"Things could be better...the castle is a mess and Keith's been hurt by the fight with one of those hybrid soldiers but the good news is that they didn't get Matt or Shiro." Kylee whimpered slightly at the mention of Keith being hurt but Lance cradled his face and kisses him gently on the mouth, the other relaxed and Lance slowly pulled away but rested his forehead against Kylee's.

"Don't worry, Mullet'll pull through just like he always does." Kylee smiled softly and nodded in agreement


	19. Chapter 19

I wanted to let those who are reading this series that i'm moving any newer chapters to Ao3


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